The following is the new release about Loudcloud. Will Andressen doing it again? You can rest assure he and star line up the makes up loudcloud to date will attract as much VC as the want and the IPO will be well received.
Greg Mullineaux
Here is the Web Site for Loudcloud. loudcloud.com
Marc Andreessen Helps Launch Web Startup
By Andrea Orr
Reuters
PALO ALTO, Calif., (Oct. 26) - Marc Andreessen, who co-founded Netscape Communications and until recently served as the chief technology officer of America Online Inc., Tuesday announced his latest venture, an Internet start-up called Loudcloud Inc.
But he didn't say much about what the company would do.
''We're being deliberately vague,'' Andreessen said in a conference call to announce the new company, which was formed just a month and a half ago and is based in Menlo Park, Calif. ''We're going to come back early in 2000 and have more details.''
This sort of non-announcement has become typical of young Internet start-ups, which want to get themselves on the Silicon Valley radar screen so they can attract key talent, but do not want to divulge details that could tip off the competition.
What Andreessen did disclose was that Loudcloud would help Internet companies develop their Web sites, handling more of the technical aspects, so that the companies could focus on the primary business.
''If you look at any Internet company now they are all hiring software engineers, and network architects and systems architects and database experts,'' Andreessen said in an interview. ''It just doesn't make any sense.''
He equated the current situation to the early days of computing, before the emergence of packaged software, when hardware makers also developed the software for their machines. Today, Internet businesses are evolving so rapidly that they can no longer meet all their internal technology needs with packaged software, Andreessen said.
This is not a revelation and over the past year the high-tech industry has become crowded with companies calling themselves application service providers (ASPs), which offer software as a service that businesses can outsource so they do not have to buy the package and add the staff to run it.
Several major software companies including Microsoft Corp., International Business Machines Corp. and Oracle Corp. offer such services.
Still Andreessen said that there remained a ''huge hole'' in this market that Loudcloud would address. On his specific plans, he remained mum.
Many of Andreesson's former colleagues have joined the start-up, which was founded in September with initial investments from the co-founders. These include Ben Horowitz, chief executive of Loudcloud, who led several divisions at Netscape and AOL, Tim Howes, a co-inventor of the Internet standard for directories, and Sik Rhee, a co-founder of Kiva software. |
