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INNOVATION
& DESIGN Home Page Architecture Brand Equity Auto Design Game Room SMALLBIZ Smart Answers Success Stories Today's Tip INVESTING Investing: Europe Annual Reports BW 50 S&P Picks & Pans Stock Screeners Free S&P Stock Report SCOREBOARDS Hot Growth 100 Mutual Funds Info Tech 100 S&P 500 B-SCHOOLS Undergrad Programs MBA Blogs MBA Profiles MBA Rankings Who's Hiring Grads | | MARCH 20, 2001 COMPANY CLOSEUP By Spencer Ante Mirror Worlds' New Gloss on the World of Data Co-founded by tech guru David Gelernter, the startup aims to help companies organize masses of information and look ahead to peer-to-peer sharing
But that's just one of the problems Mirror Worlds is trying to solve. It's also joining a pack of new companies developing Net technologies that are pushing beyond the Web and its underlying infrastructure of centralized servers by letting large numbers of people exchange information one-on-one, PC to PC. Known as peer-to-peer (P2P) computing, it's shaping up as a key part of the next phase of the Internet's development. As the Napster experience has shown, P2P computing potentially opens up a treasure trove of new digital info and offers a more efficient way of distributing that data. But this evangelical-type movement has yet to prove it has staying power. "The real challenge for P2P computing will be in figuring out the business models," says Andrew Frank, a technology officer of Web-consultant Viant. What puts Mirror Worlds, which has offices in New Haven and New York City, in the vanguard of the new movement? The company has developed software, called Scopeware, that allows users to scour files and e-mail almost instantly, as well as reach into the PCs of others. Say you can't find a memo you wrote about a plan to buy servers from Sun Microsystems. Just type the company's name into the search engine, and the computer will deliver a cascade of files mentioning Sun, with the most recent ones up front. The data can also be accessed through mobile devices like the Palm handheld. A rules administrator determines who gets access to what, down to the document level. STICKING TOGETHER. The real humdinger, though, is that Scopeware enables workers to open up their computers and share e-mail, word processing files, spreadsheets, and other digital info with anyone. This would let an executive, for example, search for a Sun file on the computer of a sales manager, instead of having to pester him for the info. And because companies own everything on their office computers, privacy would likely be less of an issue than it is when dealing with consumers. "Every company needs to find a way to digitize its documents to do business online," says Marty Gruhn, vice-president at Boston-based tech-research firm Summit Strategies. "[Mirror Worlds] could be a big part of that glue." There's more. A beta version of the technology, due in April, aims to push the peer-to-peer model of computing even further by enabling tens of thousands of workers to belong to a giant P2P network. In its current version, the Scopeware server can only handle 1,000 users at a time. But the new version will allow multiple servers to connect with one another, which vastly increases the number of users the system can handle. More importantly, it opens up the potential for collaboration between companies. Using this network, a primary-care physician could, for instance, share patient information with a specialist via the PC. Mirror Worlds hopes that its technology, timing, and management put it in a good position to profit from continuing, albeit slowing, investment in e-business software. With Gelernter, Mirror Worlds has a top-notch techie who has a knack for seeing big computing trends. In his 1992 book, Mirror Worlds, Gelernter predicted the rise of the Internet. Years before the book, while he was still a doctoral student at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Gelernter also did pioneering work in writing software that linked together a series of desktop computers. And Mirror Worlds' CEO, Michael Satow, boasts a successful track record as founder of MarketXT, the first retail after-hours stock-trading system. He sold the company in February, 2000, for $100 million to Tradescape.com, the biggest day-trading Web site. THUMBS-UP. Despite the market downturn, Satow says cash isn't a problem for the 35-employee company -- at least not for the next six months. Mirror Worlds has raised $8 million from private investors and venture capitalists Abacus Ventures and Starting Point Ventures over the past two years. But Satow says the company will have to raise an additional round of financing before the end of the year. It won't be a cakewalk. One P2P company, Popular Power, shut down in March after failing to raise more money. Mirror Worlds' other big challenge is building its client base. Right now, the company has two customers: mail-meter maker Pitney Bowes of Stamford, Conn., and Ashley Graphics, a New York company that sells office products and consulting services. A handful of others, including manufacturing giant Textron, are testing the software. Although P2P market leader NextPage boasts 150 customers, most other rivals have only a handful. Companies using Scopeware give it a thumbs-up. Salman Syed, vice-president for sales and marketing at Ashley Graphics, has used the software to organize 30,000 files of customer data that were previously stored in file cabinets and employee computers. It used to take hours -- and sometimes days -- to dig up contracts and other customer information. Using Scopeware, which converts paper documents into a searchable digital form, Syed can find, view, and act on relevant data in minutes. "I can see exactly what my sales person was talking about," he says. "I can resolve problems right away." If Mirror Worlds can convince more customers like Syed of the value of its software -- and survive the market downturn -- Gelernter will be one of those few, yet fortunate, intellectuals able to profit from their visions.  Ante covers the Internet for BusinessWeek from New York  | | |
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