Karl... Take a look at this! TPRO's CD may be bigger than we think.
Top Stories: Y2K Conference: Thinking
Tools Provides a Graphic Glimpse at the
Future
By Cory Johnson
Staff Reporter
10/2/97 7:15 PM ET
SAN FRANCISCO -- The Year 2000 crisis is a chaotic mess by any
standard. And for investors and computer geeks gathered here at the
SPG Year 2000 Conference and Expo, one of the most commonly
heard complaints is the similarity between all the different tool vendors.
"Viasoft (VIAS:Nasdaq) looks like Zitel (ZITL:Nasdaq), which looks
like Peritus (PTUS:Nasdaq), which looks like Crystal Systems
(CRYSF:Nasdaq)," said a director of corporate information technology
at a major West Coast bank (his mean bank won't let him talk to the
press). "You try and tell them apart, because I can't and the companies
won't. They all claim to do the same thing."
But there is one company -- a new and surprising player in the Year
2000 market -- that couldn't be more different, and was the talk of this
show. Thinking Tools (TSIM:Nasdaq) has very little in common with
the two dozen tool and service providers that paid $20,000 a pop for
booths in the conference exhibition hall. Instead of offering a Y2K fix,
Thinking Tools introduced a product this week that illustrates, in detail,
the chaotic nightmare that companies will face with the Year 2000.
"This is just a terrific tool," says Stephanie Moore, senior analyst for
Giga Information Group. "There is nothing like this in the market."
The tool is a CD-ROM called Think 2000, and it works like set
designers in a Godzilla movie: Companies employ it to create a
complex model of their entire business; then Think 2000 gives them a
slow-motion, graphically detailed picture of what will happen when the
giant, fire-breathing Year 2000 monster stomps on their business.
"With this tool, companies will get a detailed view of the ramification of
their Year 2000 plan," says Thinking Tools President and CEO Philip
Whalen Jr. "And they'll be able to adjust that plan if they don't like the
way it's about to turn out."
Think 2000 combines the latest academic research into chaos theory
with an engine based on the popular computer game Sim City. Thinking
Tools was formed in 1993 by John Hiles, a refugee of Maxis Corp.,
maker of Sim City. Hiles, still Thinking Tools' largest shareholder,
acquired Maxis' business simulation division (Maxis has since been
bought out by Electronic Arts (ERTS:Nasdaq), as reported in
TheStreet.com). He then launched Thinking Tools as a consulting
company that would use this type of advanced computer simulation --
known as "agent-based simulation" -- for clients like the U.S. Army,
Xerox (XRX:NYSE), Andersen Consulting and Pacific Telesis. But
last fall, CEO Whalen realized that the Year 2000 crisis offered the
company and the technology a unique opportunity.
"The Year 2000 problem is really the perfect application for this
technology," says Whalen. "So in January, I went to our board and
asked them to commit all of the company's resources to this project. I
promised that I would have the product ready to ship before the fourth
quarter, and here it is." The board, which includes technological guru
Esther Dyson and Chairman Fred Knoll of Knoll Capital
Management, let Whalen jettison Thinking Tools' entire consulting
business to recreate itself as a consulting software company based
around Think 2000. "This is a tool that will have all sorts of long-term
usage for company management," says Whalen. "But we're focused
especially on this Year 2000 problem because we see it as a perfect
use for this technology and it's clearly a pressing need." |
