From: Adam Rifkin (adam@KnowNow.com)
Date: Fri Dec 29 2000 - 23:33:06 PST
Udhay pointed out:
> > If you still have a need for an Instant Message product we suggest
> > looking into JabberIM available at http://www.jabber.com.
Hey, can anyone tell me how much of Jabber.com they own? Is it 50%?
> > The Webb Services Team
> > Webb Interactive Services, Inc.
Yikes. Check out:
http://www.quicken.com/investments/quotes/?symbol=webb
and we see that, down from a high of 70 bucks a share, WEBB is now
selling at 1 11/16. Which makes the total market cap less than $16
million. Looks like they'll have to spin out Jabber.com like 3Com spun
out Palm, to unlock more shareholder value.
Looks like the WEBB executives have started buying their company's
shares on the open market:
http://www2.marketwatch.com/pulse/intuit/pulseone.asp
> Friday, December 01, 2000
> WEBB CEO to buy co.'s stock
> 7:23 am - By Tomi Kilgore
>
> Commenting on recent decline in its share price, Webb Interactive
> Services (WEBB: news, msgs) Perry Evans, the company's chairman and
> chief executive, said: "Like many of our loyal investors, I am
> disturbed and puzzled over the decline in value of Webb shares because
> there have been no adverse changes to the Company's market position or
> business fundamentals." He added that the company's business units
> remained on track and was "confident" with the sufficiency of the
> company's financial resources. "To underscore this level of
> confidence, I am personally initiating a program today to purchase
> shares in the open market as will other key executives in the
> company." The stock of the online provider of customer relationship
> services closed 30 percent lower at $2 on Thursday.
For the year ended Dec. 31, 1999, the company reported a loss of $21.9
million, or $3.31, a share, on charges of $9.2 million.
On the other hand, the Jabber.com division is really filling out
nicely... congrats, Steve!
> Jabber.com Announces Senior Product Team
> Updated: Wednesday, December 20, 2000 06:30 AM ET
>
> Stephen Williams to Become CTO, Tom Croswell to Become VP of Product
> Development and Patrick McCarron to Become Director of Product Development
>
> DENVER, Dec. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Jabber.com, Inc., a subsidiary of Webb
> Interactive Services, Inc. (Nasdaq: WEBB, news, msgs) today announced
> the completion of its senior product development team. The new team
> members include Stephen Williams, creator of AOL's Buddylist server, Tom
> Croswell, founder of NEC's Redmond Technology Center and Patrick
> McCarron, former development manager for Exactis.com. All three
> individuals come with extensive experience in highly scalable systems,
> software tools, platforms and messaging.
>
> "We are currently targeting a delivery of our first commercial products
> in Q1 of next year. This team represents some of the best development
> and technical talent found anywhere in the industry. All three
> individuals are seasoned development and product managers, with a wealth
> of experience in messaging, infrastructure and complex software
> systems," said Andre Durand, founder of Jabber.com, Inc.
>
> Stephen Williams, CTO
>
> Stephen Williams is a technical professional with over 18 years of
> experience across more than 60 projects for Fortune 100 companies such
> as America Online, Bank of America, Lexis-Nexis, General Electric,
> Geico, NCR (now ATT), Chemical Bank (now Chase), and Computer Sciences
> Corporation. While at AOL, Williams designed and implemented the first
> version of AOL's Buddylist server (v1.x), which was a precursor to the
> popular AOL Instant Messenger(SM). Williams has served in executive
> management and technical roles including positions as CTO for
> ReverseAuction.com, CTO for Netword, President of Concinnous Consulting
> Inc., and consultant to Internet startups such as VisitingCities.com,
> Alexus.com, and PremierInternet.com.
>
> Tom Croswell, Vice President of Product Development
>
> Tom Croswell brings 17 years of management and technology experience to
> Jabber.com. Previously vice president of product development at REBOL
> Technologies, Croswell led REBOL's development of its first commercial
> products as well as its transition to an Internet infrastructure
> company. Prior to this he was director of Windows NT Programs at Veritas
> Software Corporation, where he managed their business and technical
> relationships with Microsoft Corporation and other key NT
> OEMs. Mr. Croswell was also vice president and founder of NEC's Redmond
> Technology Center, which was responsible for developing core technology
> for Microsoft Office, Visual C++, Windows 95 and 98, and the Windows NT
> operating systems. In addition, he engineered a close working
> relationship at both marketing and business levels with Microsoft. He
> has also held managerial positions with MIPS Computer Systems, Silicon
> Graphics, Digital Equipment Corporation, and the federal government.
>
> Patrick McCarron, Director of Product Development
>
> Patrick McCarron has over 13 years of software development and
> management experience. Prior to joining Jabber.com, McCarron was
> development manager for Exactis.com, a leading provider of e-mail
> marketing tools and services. While at Exactis, he was in charge of
> building new, next generation messaging systems to replace existing
> products and services. Prior to Exactis, McCarron was development
> manager for Flatiron Credit, a premium finance company and project
> manager at an international environmental consulting company. Over the
> past decade, he has delivered products in several industries, including
> client/server data warehousing products, Electronic Timesheet Suites,
> electronic reporting systems, and a point-of-sale system.
>
> About Jabber.com
>
> Jabber.com, Inc., a subsidiary of Webb Interactive Services (Nasdaq:
> WEBB, news, msgs), is the premiere provider of commercial Jabber
> solutions, products and services targeting the enterprise and service
> provider markets. Jabber is the only open source instant messaging (IM)
> platform that leverages XML technology and a distributed client/server
> architecture to give each company complete control over their IM
> services, applications and branding. Jabber's robust development tools
> and extensible architecture make it ideal for deploying any application
> that requires real-time XML messaging and presence management. Jabber's
> web site can be found at www.jabber.com.
>
> About Webb Interactive
>
> Webb Interactive Services, Inc. provides innovative online commerce
> communication solutions that help small businesses generate leads,
> increase buyer-seller interaction and strengthen customer
> relationships. Webb has pioneered an advanced XML-based technology
> platform, upon which application modules that lead the convergence of
> instant messaging and commerce are built. Webb's web site can be found
> at www.webb.net.
Hey, I didn't realize Tim O'Reilly is on WEBB's Board of Directors...
the press release doesn't mention his involvement with Pyra, though.
> Internet Industry Leader Tim O'Reilly Joins Webb Board of Directors
> Updated: Tuesday, October 24, 2000 04:16 PM ET
>
> DENVER, Oct. 24 /PRNewswire/ -- One of the most respected pioneers in
> the internet industry, Tim O'Reilly, has joined the Board of Directors
> of Webb Interactive Services, Inc. (Nasdaq: WEBB, news, msgs).
>
> Tim O'Reilly is founder and president of O'Reilly & Associates, thought
> by many to be the best computer book publisher in the world. O'Reilly's
> Global Network Navigator site (GNN, which was sold to America Online in
> June 1995) was the first Web portal and the first true commercial site
> on the World Wide Web. Tim O'Reilly is widely considered to be one of
> the thought leaders in open source and emerging technologies. O'Reilly
> and Associates operates a network of technology websites, including
> oreillynet.com, XML.com and perl.com, and manages the industry's largest
> open source and enterprise Java industry conferences. Tim O'Reilly is on
> the boards of a select group of companies including CollabNet,
> ActiveState, Invisible Worlds, and Popular Power.
>
> Commenting on the opportunity, Mr. O'Reilly stated "Webb is at the
> forefront of several groundbreaking trends on the internet. I am quite
> impressed by the management depth and vision of both Jabber.com and the
> AccelX(TM) local commerce business. This is a company and a team that is
> at the front of the technology curve and poised to make an outsized impact."
>
> "We're very pleased to attract this caliber of leadership to our
> Board. Personally and professionally, I look forward to engaging Tim's
> considerable experience and insight into the growth strategies of AccelX
> and Jabber.com," commented Perry Evans, President and CEO of Webb. "We
> will continue to recruit additional external leaders to guide Webb as we
> execute our growth strategies and establish positions of leadership in
> our key emerging markets."
It must be really hard for Jabber to manage 50 subprojects...
> Jabber Open Source Movement Surpasses 50 Active Sub-Projects
> Updated: Thursday, October 12, 2000 09:30 AM ET
>
> Strong Developer Growth Confirms Jabber's Status as One Of the Most
> Active Open Source Movements in Existence
>
> DENVER, Oct. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Jabber.com, Inc., a subsidiary of Webb
> Interactive Services, Inc. (Nasdaq: WEBB, news, msgs), today announced
> that the Jabber Open Source Project has surpassed 50 active
> sub-projects, all focused on extending functionality of the Jabber
> real-time XML instant messaging platform. The accelerated growth is
> attributed to increased interest in Jabber within the open source
> development community, along with an increase in the number of companies
> who view Jabber as the most flexible and forward looking platform upon
> which they can deploy instant messaging applications and services.
>
> Of the over 50 active projects, at least 17 have offerings available
> today, ranging from Jabber clients which combine features of Napster for
> file-sharing to clients specifically designed for use within highly
> important projects such as Netscape's Mozilla browser.
>
> "The current list of active projects is just the tip of the iceberg,"
> stated Michael Bauer, vice president of Open Alliances at Jabber.com,
> Inc. "We know of many more projects which are not yet public and are
> being developed internally. The viral power of an open source project is
> clearly being demonstrated."
>
> Highlights of sub-projects being developed as open source include
> integration with Palm, a Java client and an HTTP client. Other projects
> under commercial development include Jabber.com's integration of the
> Jabber server with Sun's Java(TM) 2 Platform Enterprise Edition
> (J2EE(TM)) and Sun's iPlanet(TM) LDAP directory server. Many of these
> projects add significant value to businesses that plan to use Jabber for
> extending real-time messaging applications throughout their corporation.
>
> "We see a continued base of momentum in Jabber both as a platform and as
> a solution to enterprise demands for an instant messaging system. The
> growing number of these open source projects enhances the value of all
> Jabber development activities, particularly the value of our commercial
> offerings in enterprise servers, hosted solutions, professional services
> and support agreements," said Andre Durand, founder and general manager
> of Jabber.com, Inc. "Momentum with new applications are one of the
> fundamental drivers of increased demand for our commercial products and
> services."
>
> "It's astonishing at how many people are really digging into the
> platform and beginning to use it in ways which I never imagined. I think
> some of the most powerful technologies are at their core, quite
> simple. Jabber is no exception," said Jeremie Miller, founder of the
> Jabber Open Source Project. "It's exciting to hear of new projects and
> companies that are finding the platform straight-forward, easy-to-use
> and manipulate. XML is a great language for developers because it
> provides them with a lot of flexibility."
>
> A partial listing of the projects mentioned in this release are
> available at www.jabber.org and at www.jabbercentral.com.
Jabber made some real cool strides last quarter, too...
-- Jabber and Red Hat forged a strategic relationship to deliver real-time
messaging infrastructure to Red Hat embedded Linux. The new Jabber
compatibility is designed to make it easy for developers of embedded
Linux applications to add real-time messaging and XML routing to their
applications.
-- During September, Jabber surpassed 10,000 server downloads with more
than 1,000 of these servers now actively deployed on the Internet. The
number of installed servers becomes an important metric, where any one
server may potentially serve hundreds of thousands of end users. This
signals the beginning of a new generation of instant messaging (IM) as
a more strategic and embedded platform for real-time communications.
'Twill be fun to keep watching them. I hope they succeed.
---- Adam@KnowNow.ComNeo: What are you trying to tell me? That I can dodge bullets? Morpheus: No, Neo. I'm trying to tell you that when you're ready, you won't have to. -- The Matrix
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Dec 29 2000 - 23:37:59 PST