New technologies come into vogue so quickly these days that the companies gambling their livelihood on them have to grow up quickly or be bought. Push technology firm BackWeb Technologies Inc, only last year a start-up in the brave new world that pushes Internet content to our screens (CI No 3,062), has bought Toronto-based Lanacom Inc for an undisclosed sum. Lanacom develops the Headliner family of push software, which enables companies to manipulate and control content coming in from a variety of sources. Headliner tools enable the information to be filtered, and distributed across the enterprise, and apparently make setting up a push channel simple. San Jose, California-based BackWeb says it will integrate Headliner tools into its server software. The company bought Lanacom for its tools and development team, it said. BackWeb director of product management Bill Heye says everyone is excited by the promise of Push, but he reckons BackWeb is one of the few companies that has the complete infrastructure to deliver enterprise systems. Customers include software companies such as anti-virus software firm McAfee Associates Inc and Diamond Multimedia Inc, which use BackWeb to distribute software upgrades to customers worldwide. Lanacom chief executive Tony Davis will become vice president of product marketing, and Heye says the company will keep most of Lanacom’s mainly research staff in the Toronto office, bringing the total number of employees to around 110. BackWeb expects to deliver integrated products this fall that will support the Microsoft Corp CDF push delivery standard and Netscape Communications Corp Netcaster.
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