20 Years Ago: The Early Web Product Line that Almost Wasn’t

It was the month of November 1994, and my mission was clear: create and launch the first hardware + software web product line, putting Silicon Graphics (SGI) into the leadership position of a market about to explode. Based on what I learned in Chicago, I believed that if we launched by end of January, we had a very good chance of beating key rivals Sun and Apple to market with solutions for the most valuable “picks and shovels” segments: web authoring and web serving. To get there, I had a two-part plan, focused on forging internal parternships with two other divisions within the company.

The first part was to partner with NSD (Networked Systems Division), a business unit that had been formed within the last year to expand the company’s footprint beyond 3D workstations into the market for high-performance servers. If our two divisions worked together, we could create a product line with the Indy workstation as one entry point (a multimedia monster for both web authoring and web serving) and the Challenge S as the other entry point (NSD’s Indy-based entry-level offering, an ideal web server). The rest of the Challenge server line (see image below) would provide a path for massive scalability.

The second part was to partner with one of our two software divisions to create an awesome, SGI-native, graphics- and media-centric, drag-and-drop, “WYSIWYG” web authoring tool that we could bundle with our workstations.

To Author

Since it was more than a little ambitious to dream of creating such a tool in less than three months, I started with the authoring software. My first stop was Silicon Studio, a division recently formed to create authoring software for interactive content. Heading up product management there was none other than Scott Bonham, who had hired me into the company and then given me a big break by moving on and an allowing me to become his backfill. Despite my clarity, conviction, and passion, nothing I said could convince him that the web should be anything other than a secondary focus for Silicon Studio. Their plate was already full, working on an authoring system for video games.

Oh, well. At least I had one other software division I could partner with, VMD (Visual Magic Division), the group responsible for SGI’s “Indigo Magic” desktop environment (see image below) and a bunch of cool software tools highlighting unique capabilities of our systems. They even had a team focused on publishing. But conversations there fared no better. My logical champion to take on the project was dismissive of HTML, seeing it as an inferior derivative of SGML. He would happily lead an effort to build an SGML editor. I thanked him, but suggested the web was unlikely to switch to SGML, even if we built the best damn SGML authoring system in the world!

Suddenly, SoftQuad’s HotMeTaL Pro started to look much better to me, despite its unlovable interface. I set to work negotiating the terms of a deal to get it ported to IRIX, so that we could bundle it with the workstation part of the web product line I planned to launch in January.

And To Serve

I hoped I’d fare better with the server division. After all, the plan there required no software development, just a simple bundling of existing hardware units with third-party web server software (to be licensed from Mosaic Communications). SGI would be first to market with a “turnkey web server” for very little effort. Lenny Rosenthal, who headed up marketing for NSD, was conflicted. He saw the great potential of the market, but knew that convincing his boss, Ross Bott, the GM of the division, would not be easy. He arranged a meeting on a Thursday afternoon for us to make the case. Ross was a seasoned hardware exec, very technical, and methodical. I, on the other hand, was inexperienced, learning Computer Science on the job, and given to a passion that might be called “evangelical”. The meeting clearly did not go well, but no decision was made on the spot. The next day, however, Lenny told me that NSD would not be jumping with me into the web server market. Instead, they would stay focused on the market for high-scale database servers.

Dead in the Water

My bold plan could survive without homegrown web authoring software. But trying to make SGI the leader in the web server market without the participation of our server division? That was laughable. Our first-to-market web product line was dead in the water.

And that was simply not acceptable.

It was a Friday afternoon. I went to see my boss, Jim White. Readers of this series may recall that Jim had taken over the head of marketing role for the division behind Indy, DSS (Digital Sight and Sound), and immediately empowered me to focus my energy on finding new markets. I shared with him my frustration with the disastrous results of my internal partnering efforts, concluding with, “SGI is in the perfect spot to take advantage of the biggest new market in computing, and we’re going to totally blow it. We’re going to just let it slip through our fingers.”

Jim’s a pretty intense guy. Smart, confident, and passionate. He didn’t hesitate in his response, as if what to do should have been completely obvious to me. He asked, “Why don’t you just do it?”

The light bulb went off. It hadn’t occurred to me that such an option existed. But as soon as he said it, I realized that there was a pathway forward, if I could grab full leadership of a company-wide effort. “I’m in,” I said.

Minutes later, we were in the cubicle of Tom Furlong, General Manager of DSS, pitching the idea of creating a new product line by bundling software for web authoring and web serving. Tom, who embodied the epitome of the the can-do spirit of mid-’90’s Silicon Graphics, was immediately supportive, saying that he had been advocating for “solution bundles” for a while. “Let’s do it,” he said. “What do you need from me?”

“I need to be knighted,” I said.

Tom smiled, and without missing a beat, pretended to pick up a sword. “You are hereby knighted,” he said, dropping the virtual blade to my shoulder.

“That’s awesome, and I really appreciate it, but I think this knighting will have to come from higher up,” I said. “This is a mission that requires product changes in multiple divisions.”

Still smiling, Tom stepped toward his desk and picked up the phone. “Can you be ready to present at TJ’s business ops meeting on Monday?” (“TJ” was Tom Jurmoluk, the company’s COO.)

Without hesitation, my mouth said, “Yes,” but my mind thought, “Whoa, that’s crazy. I don’t even have a draft presentation!”

A minute later, Tom hung up the phone. “Okay, Monday’s totally booked, but you’re now on the agenda for the exec team meeting on Wednesday.”

I thanked Tom, and as we headed out of his cubicle, he said, “One thing, though. I don’t want you to go hat in hand, asking for money.”

I nodded and quickly left, eager to start working on what might be the most important presentation of my Silicon Valley career.

Finalizing the Most Important Presentation of my Career

It could be said, as I prepared for my big exec team presentation, that I didn’t quite know what I was getting myself into. You see, I was pretty green — in more ways than one. I’d been at SGI less than a year, and aside from a summer internship at Tandem, this was my first job in Silicon Valley, my first job in tech. Heck, it was even my first job in the for-profit sector! And unlike all the other product manager types at SGI, I did not have an engineering background, so I was essentially learning Computer Science on the job. Oh, and although I was 32 at the time, I looked way younger.

And now I was stepping forward, asking to be put in charge of an effort to launch the company into the web authoring and web serving markets with a whole new product line that would span multiple divisions.

The people I was about to present to, on the other hand, were leaders of the hottest company in Silicon Valley, and they were all incredibly technical, with real depth in domains like 3D graphics, chip design, systems architecture, networking, and so on. In attendance would be the GMs of four hardware divisions and two software divisions, a VP of manufacturing, as well as other execs (finance, legal, and marketing, I think). Running the meeting would be Tom “TJ” Jermoluk, the hotshot technical leader who had rocketed up from engineer to President and COO in less than eight years.

In other words, I probably should have been more than a little nervous. (And it might have been a good idea to do some homework on my audience.) Instead, I stayed calm, cool, and keenly focused on building up an SGI-quality presentation.

Fortunately, my colleagues on the Indy marketing team had my back.

For example, on Monday, two days before my presentation, Sanford Russell, who had done the Hotwired site sponsorship deal that planted our flag in the web market, asked me, “Have you ever presented to TJ before?” I didn’t realize it at the time, but in hindsight, he surely already knew the answer.

“No,” I said. “Honestly, I haven’t even met him yet.”

“Hmmm,” he replied. “Would you like a tip?”

I nodded.

“TJ is very tactile,” he said. “You may want to bring a prop or two to make your pitch more tangible.”

I thanked him and ran off to look at my draft presentation through a whole new lens.

How to enhance it with “props”? The first thing that came to mind was the part of the presentation on the web authoring market opportunity. In that, I had planned to make an impassioned plea for creating an SGI-quality, drag-and-drop, WYSIWYG HTML editor, and to only make brief mention of “Plan B” (just getting SoftQuad to port HoTMetaL Pro). Suddenly, I recalled the shrink-wrapped box of HoTMetaL Pro that I brought back from Chicago. I had my first prop. (Photo below is pretty much what it looked like, although this is actually version 2.0 and for the Mac.)

To find a second prop, I pondered how I could make more tangible the new product line I was proposing to create. And so I headed over to Manufacturing. On foot. (Yes, we were not manufacturing in China.) I walked across the driveway of our office park in Mountain View (the same one that today is headquarters for LinkedIn), and entered Building 1, where our workstations were assembled and packed for shipping.

Within minutes something caught my eye. Indy had a very distinctive bright turquoise shell. But sitting on a shelf a bit to the side of the assembly line was something that looked just like an Indy shell, but it was pitch black. I asked what it was for and was told that it was for the Indys sent to Tandem via our OEM partnership.

(BTW, the one that my friends in Manufacturing lent me did not have a Tandem badge on it; it was just the shell, not the whole system in the picture above.)

Now, I had two props, but I also had a new puzzle. To make the proposed product line truly tangible, I’d need something more that a distinctive black shell. Suddenly it was clear that I was missing something vitally important to the pitch — a name for the product line!

As any of you who have ever named a product or company can attest, coming up with a great name can take days, weeks, or even months. I had less that 48 hours. Fortunately, the pitch black shell yielded some inspiration. If this were to be the first product line for the builders of the web, and it were to be all black, then it should be called, “Spider”. And the name gave rise to a tagline, “For some, making a Web comes naturally.” (Okay, kinda hokey and a bit tortured in hindsight, but certainly good enough for creating a slide that would make this product line truly tangible!) And based on this image I found in my notebook, it looks like I may have ended up creating a mock print ad as the primary image for one of the slides in the deck:

By Tuesday evening, I was ready. My presentation was done, and I had my props. My plan was for a quick dinner, a few hours of rehearsing, then heading home at a decent hour for a good night of sleep. My presentation was at 9:00am.

I was in a great mood as I headed down to Café Iris with Sanford Russell and another deeply experienced member of the Indy Marketing team, Peter Hubbard. Peter had taught me a lot about how the workstation business works. Originally from the U.K., he had a quick wit and the remnants of a British accent. As we ate our free dinner (a now-common perk that SGI helped to pioneer), Peter asked me if I was “all ready” for my big presentation. Indeed, I was, I assured him. Then he asked with a smile, “So, how much are you asking for?”

“Um,” I said, a word that I rarely use. “I’m not actually asking for any money. Tom asked me to not go hat in hand.”

Sanford, as if on cue, jumped in. “So, let me get this straight. You’re going to take 20 or 30 minutes on the agenda of the COO and exec team to get them excited about the company’s biggest market opportunity, and then you’re not going to ask for any investment?”

Without missing a beat, Peter added, “Sounds like you’re wasting their time.”

Suddenly, I wasn’t hungry any more. This evening would no longer be about rehearsing and going to bed early. Now, I had one more slide to create: the business case for a multi-million dollar investment request.

The Big Pitch toTJ and the Exec Team

The big day was finally here. I’d made it down from the city ahead of the rush hour, and arrived at SGI well before the start of the exec team meeting.

I headed down to the Building 6, where the execs had their offices, and found the Board Room. Meeting me there was David Ciemiewicz, a.k.a. “Ciemo,” an engineer as passionate about the web as I was, who had in recent weeks gone from being a friend and occasional technical advisor to becoming essentially the technical co-founder for the new business we hoped to get green-lit. And this morning, he would also be handling an important, if not glamorous task — hitting Page Down to advance the slides of the Showcase presentation, so I could focus on speaking.

The Board Room was enormous and brightly lit, with a long table running most of its length. Ciemo went about getting the presentation on the Indy, while I stashed my props in the belly of the lectern at the head of the table. After a quick run-through of the deck, we exited the room and camped out in small waiting area outside.

We’d end up being there for a while, as our presentation wasn’t scheduled until after the weekly conference call with country managers. Soon, the execs started showing up for the meeting. Though almost none of them recognized me (and vice versa), most of them knew Ciemo, who had been at the company for eight years, so there were a lot of smiles, greetings, and small talk as they headed in.

I was on the lookout for one of the few execs that I actually did know, our division’s GM, Tom Furlong. You see, I hadn’t had a chance to let him know about my last-minute addition to the presentation. By the time Tom arrived, the Board Room was more than half full, as the meeting was only a few minutes away. “All set?” he asked.

“Yep,” I replied, “But I need to tell you something.”

“Shoot,” he said.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get to discuss it with you in advance,” I said. “But last night I decided to end the presentation with a request for investment.”

“How much?” he asked.

“Three million.”

“Okay,” said Tom, with a bit of a chuckle. “Good luck with that!”

He headed into the Board Room, leaving us to ponder whether he thought I was smart or crazy.

After all the execs made it in, the doors closed, and the long wait began. The country manager call took something like 30 minutes, but it felt like an eternity. Finally, the door opened, and Ciemo and I entered a room that now looked dramatically different. What had been bright, empty, and roomy, was now mostly dark and jam packed with people. The long table was full, with five execs on each side and another two on the end. And the back of the room was crowded with another dozen or so folks, including each division’s director of marketing.

Ciemo got the presentation up on the big screen, and I took my place at the lectern, which was now in the only brightly lit part of the room. A few small lights above the table provided just enough illumination for me to see the faces of the execs. Everything else, including all the folks at the back of the room, was in near total darkness.

I looked around the table, and made eye contact for the first time with the company’s President and COO, Tom “TJ” Jermoluk. He sat halfway down the left side of the table. His blond hair and relaxed confidence gave him a surfer vibe. He gave a big smile and said, “Let’s go.”

No recording was made of this presentation, and the digital copies of the Showcase file have long since been lost. All that remains, aside from memories, is one color photo that I used to illustrate one of the slides. But here’s what I remember of the pitch…

After introducing myself, I started with a slide introducing the World Wide Web, illustrated with example web pages.

“The Internet has been around for 25 years,” I said. “But recently it has entered a new phase of explosive growth. Why? Because the Web makes the Internet visual, media-rich, and interactive. And that makes it both compelling and easy and to use. In the process, it is now creating one of the fastest growing new markets for visual computing…”

I should probably point out that I did not have a script or notes, and that this was a true SGI-quality presentation, which is to say that there were no words on the slides other than titles. But my pitch flowed like water that morning 20 years ago, as I was delivering a narrative I felt deep in my bones.

“Let’s take a look at what I mean by fast growth,” I said, and Ciemo brought up the next slide, showing a graph that looked something like this:

“By every important measure, the World Wide Web is growing exponentially. The number of websites is now doubling every three months! And here’s why that growth will not slow any time soon…”

From there, I showed and talked about a virtuous cycle. (More people getting online, inspiring more websites to be created, leading to more compelling content, leading to more people downloading the browser and getting online, and on and on.)

“As that cycle continues,” I said, as we advanced to the next slide. “It’s giving rise to two ‘picks and shovels’ market segments, that we should not only enter, but that we should, in fact, lead. Those segments are web authoring and web serving.”

“On the authoring front, I should say that I’ve been incredibly frustrated by our experiences in the multimedia authoring market. With Macromedia unwilling to port to IRIX, we’re frozen out of the main action. But with the web authoring market, we have no such disadvantage. In fact, we can (and should) jump in, feet first, and create a visual, media-rich HTML authoring system that highlights the differentiation of our workstations. But even if we don’t do that, we don’t have to stand on the sidelines. SoftQuad, a small software company in Toronto, has created the very first HTML editor and is open to a deal to port it to IRIX.” I paused, reached down into the belly of the lectern, and pulled out my first prop, a shrink-wrapped box of software. “It’s called HoTMetaL Pro, and it’s currently available for Solaris.”

“Can I see that?” asked TJ.

Attention quickly shifted, first to TJ, then back to the box in my hands. I leaned forward and handed it to the exec seated closest to me on the left. It was quickly passed along to TJ. The room was silent as he slowly examined all sides of the box. “Why don’t we make something like this?” he asked, looking around the table, and then handing the box not back toward me, but to the exec to his left. For the next couple minutes, each VP repeated the little ritual of accepting the box, examining it carefully, then handing it to the guy to his left.

As the box made its way around the room, I returned to my pitch, shifting over to the web server market. Here, I would have emphasized the central role of Netscape (the company having just renamed itself the prior week), and the incredible good fortune of having our recently departed founder, Jim Clark, at the helm there; and them using Indys as their development environment and as the server hosting the downloads of the browser. It was a hot new server market being born on our platform; we just needed to license their server software and bundle it.

I laid out my proposal, at high level, to enter these two market segments with a new product line, comprised of workstations and servers, bundled with all the right tools for kick-ass, media-rich web authoring and serving. To make it more tangible, I teed up a product line slide by saying, “Introducing Spider from Silicon Graphics.” The slide made it look like the product line already existed and was already supported by print advertising. And then I reached into the lectern to get my second prop, the black plastic Indy shell. Holding it up, I said, “And the entire product line will come in black.”

I paused, hoping TJ would chime in, but instead, someone from the other side of the table piped up. (I would later find out that it was the company’s VP of Manufacturing.) He said, “I have to draw the line there. We don’t want that kind of inventory headache.”

TJ added, “Agreed.”

“Okay, not a problem,” I said, as I quickly disappeared my prop. “A different color shell is not a critical success factor.”

My pitch would go on to show how we were already had a warm welcome from the market, with prominent sites already “Powered by Silicon Graphics,” including HotWired and the Internet Underground Music Archive (IUMA)3.

“The web is bringing Silicon Graphics to a whole new set of customers.” I said, as we hit our second-to-last slide. “And these first-time buyers are blown away by our products. For example, the team at Sound Print Media Center were so happy with their purchase of an Indy for web authoring and serving that they mailed us this photo!”

And then came the final slide, entitled “To Become The Market Leader”. This was the one I added the prior evening, and did not look like any other slide in the deck. Instead of one main image and no words, it was really just a spreadsheet with pretty small font. It detailed what I thought we should spend money on to create and launch the product line — and how much incremental revenue I projected we would deliver in the first two quarters.

I wasn’t sure what detail to go into in my pitch, but at some point TJ stopped me, having absorbed the level of detail he wanted.

“Okay,” he said. “Let me get this straight. If I give you two to three million dollars, you’ll get us into the market in January and take up your outlook for the next two quarters by 15 million?”

All eyes were now on me. It was pretty clear that the right answer was “Yes.” But a few things prevented me from speaking. First, I had never been in a conversation about quarterly “outlooks”. Second, since I didn’t personally have one hanging over my head, I wasn’t sure what it would mean for me to modify one over someone else’s head.

With the extended silence starting to get awkward, my boss, Jim White, stepped forward from the darkness of the back of the room into the dim light near the table’s end. “That’s right,” he said.

TJ turned in his chair, and all eyes followed.

“We will take up our outlook for Q3 and Q4,” said Jim.

TJ nodded and turned his chair and gaze back to me. Then he said the best five word sentence of my career, “Make it so, Number One.”

After a moment, he said, “Okay, let’s take a 10 minute break.”

Someone turned on the lights. Ciemo and I shook hands. Jim White came up close to me, put his hand on my shoulder, and whispered, “Your top priority now is hiring.”

To be continued…

Originally published as a series of posts on TheRealMcCrea.com in November, 2014.