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The Financial Times ( Wednesday September 15 1999 ) Whizzkid with a passion for changing the world Young entrepreneur Shervin Pishevar is pursuing a dream to reshape the global software market - and his new web-based service might do just that, writes Louise Kehoe. Shervin Pishevar may be Bill Gates' worst nightmare; an extraordinarily bright young man with radical ideas about software, a passion to change the world and a business plan. Mr Pishevar, 25, is the president and chief executive of WebOSInc (formerly HyperOffice), a software start-up with 10 employees, of whom he is the oldest. Unencumbered by the complexities of running a large company or pleasing shareholders, Mr Pishevar is pursuing a dream to "democratise" the software market and "open access to technologies previously reserved for the few who could afford it". As the new name of his company implies, WebOSInc has developed a web-based operating system, my-WebOS, a platform for applications that are hosted on a web server instead of desktop computers. Mr Pishevar is quick to give credit to Fredrik Malmer, an 18-year-old Swedish software writer, who created the operating system that the company is now blending with a full suite of office applications. Rather than licensing its software to individual users, WebOSInc plans to offer access to the programmes as a service via the internet. This places the fledgling company in the forefront of a rapidly growing trend toward "software as services" that is supported by some of Microsoft's fiercest rivals, including Oracle and Sun Microsystems. Yet WebOSInc has not affiliated itself with the anti-Microsoft camp. Although it may end up competing with the world's largest software company for customers and for the time and attention of third-party developers, this start-up has no plans to tackle the mighty Microsoft head on. Drew Morris, chief technology officer, says the team is too smart to "pull the tiger's tail". Rather, they aim to reshape the software market. Then, it will be up to Microsoft to respond. "We are small, fast, agile, flexible, young, filled with a passion for ideas and vision and we will leverage our first-mover advantage to gain a leading share of a new market we will have enabled," says Mr Pishevar. MyWebOS is a "disruptive technology", he says, one that will change the dominant distribution channels for software. "Since our technology will also enable the full realisation of a true 'network computer', the distribution of computer hardware will shift as well," he predicts. Microsoft is not ignoring the trend. This week, it announced plans to offer tools to enable software developers to create web-hosted applications. Yet these tools remain tied to the Windows operating system. In contrast, WebOSInc aims to make its software available to any computer user, no matter what sort of computer or web-access device they are using and regardless of the computer operating system involved. WebOSInc will launch myWebOS later this month. In October, it plans to announce partnerships with some of the busiest web sites on the internet. It is also targeting PC manufacturers. The software company will share software use fees with its partners. The business model has huge potential, says Chris Shipley, editor of DemoLetter, an industry newsletter. If WebOSInc's software begins to appear on popular web sites, this will get PC manufacturers thinking, she suggests. With PC manufacturers under pressure to reduce their prices, they may well ask: "Why pay Microsoft to bundle Works or Office with our products?". In contrast, a partnership with WebOSInc could reduce the PC manufacturer's costs and also provide it with an "annuity revenue stream" of monthly fees for software use, she says. WebOSInc is not alone in spotting the potential of web-hosted software. Desktop.com, a San Francisco start-up, is heading in the same direction. Sun Microsystems announced earlier this month plans to make a suite of office applications called StarOffice available for use free of charge over the internet. These and other offerings "validate our space", says Mr Pishevar. Besides which, each of the pioneers of web-hosted software is taking a slightly different tack. Desktop.com, which has revealed little about its plans, appears to be aiming at the individual computer user. Sun Microsystems is out to prove the concept of web-hosted software, which could boost demand for its high-performance servers, rather than to dominate the market itself. WebOSInc also aims to differentiate itself through close relationships with third-party software developers. MyWebOS comes with a full application programmer's interface and developer's tool kit that enables software writers to begin building applications. The HyperOffice suite of productivity applications will be "open sourced", so that all developers can participate in improving and expanding upon them, says Mr Pishevar. "Since we will be licensing our technology to other companies that will be hosting the software, we can focus on our developers' network and enabling developers to create web applications that no one has ever seen before." If Mr Pishevar sounds like an idealist, he makes no apologies. A former student activist who involved himself in local education as well as global issues - he graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, just two years ago - he now aims to become an "entrepreneurial activist". Yet Mr Pishevar may have more in common with today's leaders of the computer industry "establishment" than he realises. Steve Jobs, of Apple Computer, was determined to bring computing to the masses. Bill Gates wanted a "computer on every desk and in every home" to run Microsoft software long before most people had thought of owning one. As Mr Gates has warned that Microsoft is vulnerable to new competitors, so Mr Pishevar is already planning to avoid being caught out by the next generation of software entrepreneurs. If we execute perfectly we will, in the future, face the same challenges that our larger competitors face today," he says. His goal is "to keep WebOSInc a very simple organisation". The irony is that Mr Pishevar and Mr Gates, although they have very different backgrounds - the former the son of a taxi cab driver and a hotel worker, the latter the son of a prominent Seattle family - share an unusual intellectual curiosity and capacity that might make them friends, were they not destined to become competitors. |
