The brain-drain at JavaSoft continues. Last week members of its Jeeves server project defected to launch their own Internet startup company, innovatively code-named Internet Startup, according to our sister publication, Online Reporter. The company has over $1 million in VC money behind it, thanks to Menlo Park’s Bessemer Venture Partners. David Cowan, a general partner with Bessemer will be the new company’s CEO. Cowan also happens to sit on the board of digital authentication company, VeriSign, Inc. The week-old startup is not yet ready to announce products, but according to its VP of Marketing, Chris Zuleeg, Bessemer identified what will become an obvious and compelling customer need six months down the line and recruited the ex-JavaSoft employees to develop a solution. VeriSign is best known for providing authentication technology like SET compliant digital certificates and Jeeves is Sun’s Java-powered Internet server, so it seems likely that Internet Startup will be providing some kind of server side authentication software, though Zuleeg says that the final product will include both client and server software. The product, he adds, will make it easier for networked applications to become ubiquitous. Sun’s Jeeves technology, which is currently available free of charge at http://www.sun.com, makes use of servlets – server side applets – to write cross platform database plug-ins in Java. Whatever Internet Startup ends up shipping, it is expected to be in beta 9 months from now. Internet Startup expects to be giving away its software at first, and charging once it has market share.
