from what I can gather, tibco is an extraordinary company; just hope it doesn't pop too much on the IPO.
here's a neat story about Tibco conference this week.
Thursday May 13 9:53 PM ET
In Future, Nearly Everything Seen Tied To The Net
By Duncan Martell
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (Reuters) - There are 63 microprocessors in a new General Motors Corp. (NYSE:GM - news) Cadillac Seville, a Web-enabled refrigerator really is on the way and already you can talk to your car via an Auto PC.
And chances are they will all be connected -- someday.
It may sound far-fetched, but if some of high-technology's heaviest hitters are to be believed, it is also true.
''If you really take a long-term view ... people still tend to underestimate what the Internet will do for us,'' Steve Ballmer, president of Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT - news), said Thursday at Tibco Software Inc.'s Strategic Directions 1999 conference in San Francisco.
''The Internet over time will be a place where any business model can be sustained,'' Ballmer said.
Of course, not all of the Internet start-ups will survive, Yahoo Inc. Chief Executive Tim Koogle said in a later speech.
But the Internet and the browsers used to navigate it have broken the old rules, executives said.
''Thanks to this great network in the sky called the Internet, everyone's got access to just about everything,'' said Robert Austrian, an analyst at NationsBanc Montgomery Securities in San Francisco.
That includes stock trading, where some 17 percent of equities now are traded via the Internet through online brokerages, according to Gregor Bailar, chief information officer for Nasdaq.
It also extends to banks, where according to consulting firm Booz-Allen & Hamilton, it costs banks 100 times more to process a transaction at a traditional branch office than over the Internet.
''It took 100 years for there to be a billion phones and it's going to take 10 years for there to be one billion cell phones,'' said Vivek Ranadive, chairman and founder of Tibco Software, which plans to raise as much as $60 million through an initial public offering.
Reuters Group Plc, the largest provider of financial news and information, owns a majority stake in Tibco and fully owns Tibco Finance Technology Inc., the arm that sells Tibco products to the financial services industry.
Tibco's software technology lets information be shared instantaneously among different computer programs and is widely used by brokerages and is now being used in the technology, telecommunications, energy and healthcare industries.
Even companies viewed as technology stalwarts or slow movers are benefiting, analysts said.
International Business Machines Corp. Chief Executive Louis Gerstner said in New York Wednesday that about $20 billion of IBM's $80 billion in 1998 revenue came from sales for its e-business hardware, software and services. He also spoke of huge pent-up demand for Internet connections in 2000 and beyond.
''This is a pervasive technology,'' said Donald Listwin, executive vice president at Cisco Systems Inc., the world's largest maker of Internet equipment. ''It is a disruptive force and it is going to change everything.''
Listwin also sits on Tibco Software's board. Cisco has a sizable minority investment in Palo Alto, Calif.-based Tibco.
Consumers and businesses alike can also expect a surge in wireless devices that link to the Internet and are connected with hard-wired as well as other wireless devices.
''It will literally get woven into people's lives,'' Koogle said of forthcoming information and communications technologies.
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