Just a couple of months after closing its second round of funding, start-up Tioga Systems Inc has successfully bagged Excite@Home as one of its first and largest customers. The combined portal, internet-over-cable and advertising technology and management company said it will bundle components of Tioga’s web-based customer service Healing System product with its @Home’s cable internet service. In addition, the Palo Alto, California based start up announced that Radha Ramaswami Basu will join the company as its president and CEO, in a move that Tioga says is designed to position the company for big growth. Basu takes over from Mark Pincus, who now becomes chairman.
Specifically, Excite@Home will use the self service and self healing modules of Tioga’s Healing software to monitor and repair all its network components and client software. The self healing module uses Tioga’s patent protected DNA probe technology to diagnose and fix problems before they occur, while self service enables users to interrogate the software and ask for answers to specific problems. They can also dial in to a support center and request verbal or remote support. According to Tony Rodoni, Tioga’s product marketing manager, attracting deals like the one with Excite@Home, which currently has over 620,000 cable internet subscribers, is exactly the direction the company wants to be headed in.
Support over the web is a hot new category and there aren’t many players out there yet, he said. We’re looking to partner with companies that will scale and grow as the internet grows. People like Inktomi, Vignette and Excite are all good examples of web infrastructure businesses that benefit as the web grows.
Rodoni said that was the main reason the company attracted Radha Basu, who was most recently general manager of Hewlett-Packard Co’s electronic business software organization, having served 20 years prior to that in different management positions at HP. She left HP in January to become a consultant for internet start-ups but Rodoni said it was her aim to join a start up like Tioga, with lots of growth potential. Her appointment follows hot on the heels of Tioga hiring Mike O’Rourke, former Tivoli Systems executive, to VP of operations. As CEO, Basu will be charged with leading the company’s global expansion. Having ran HP’s outfit in Germany and India, Rodoni said Tioga considered her the ideal candidate to drive its growth into Europe, this year, and Asia in 2000. O’Rourke, on the other hand, will focus on building the company’s customer base, from the current 15 to 20 to double that in a short amount of time, Rodoni said. He’ll also focus on growing Tioga’s professional support services and ramping up the number of internal staff from the current 80 to around 200 as business grows.
Hiring Basu and O’Rourke marks Tioga’s intention to transition itself from start-up to high-growth internet business, Rodoni said. Deals like the one with Excite@Home, which is growing its subscriber base at a rate of 300% year on year, are indicative of where the market’s going. With prices coming down and companies giving away free PCs and free web connection, the number one objective is being able to provide stellar support and services, Rodoni said, it’s the only way to differentiate their services and Tioga is at the core of that support strategy. It’s already attracted the likes of Bear Stearns, PacificCare, CompuCom and Micron Electronics as customers, and Rodoni says more contract wins are in the wings.
In June Tioga completed its second round of funding to the tune of $17m, attracting investment from such industry figures as Ben Rosen, chairman of Compaq Computer Corp and Roger Sippl, founder of Informix Corp, Vantive Corp and Visigenics. The company, which was founded in 1997, plans to go for third round funding next year with a view to filing for an IPO sometime soon after.
