1995 start-up NetBuild Inc, Foster City, California, wants to build a company around its WebWorkshop Intranet development environment product with the corporate ethics of Hewlett Packard Co, the partnership capabilities of Microsoft Corp and the competitive paranoia of Intel Corp. Tall order for a start-up, but NetBuild insists it has a technology like no other. The product is WebWorkshop, an environment which allows developers stitch together Intranet objects into applications using multiple toolsets, including Microsoft Front Page with Adobe PageMill, Symantec Cafe and Adobe Photoshop. Developers can run it on Windows 95 and deploy the applications anywhere. NetBuild founders Robert Bolt and William Daniel – who both have applications development experience and long industry resumes that include Oracle, Platinum Technologies and Intel – claim that with a first-of-its-kind product, $300,000 of their own money to start up, 15 independent investors, a $1.5m R&D budget and an industry that currently laps up anything with the word Intranet in front of it, they can’t lose. Or can they? NetBuild will have to do a lot of missionary work just to explain to customers what WebWorkShop can do – a challenge in the noisy Internet market. And it won’t be long before companies with the muscle of Microsoft or Netscape create a similar offering. But Bolt insists that IT managers would rather have NetBuild’s independent product which won’t lock them in to using just one vendor’s products and that large vendors tend to move slowly, giving them a window of opportunity. The firm is in talks with SHL Systemhouse and wants to get KPMG, Andersen Consulting and about 10 to 20 integrators and training firms on board to sell and support the product. The firm is committed to placing a NetBuild staffer at each large WebWorkShop beta site. NetBuild hopes to sell multiple thousands of its products by the end of 1997, but isn’t banking on making a profit until its second year. The WebWorkShop basic edition costs $900, the team version is $4,000. NetBuild is already looking at developing other products to compliment its development environment such as authoring tools and application component types.
