1995 closed 2001 re established 2009 headquarters redwood city california 1995 2001 doylestown pennsylvania 2009 present key people samir arora founder steve raubenstine president and ceo products web design applications content management systems revenue 34.2 million usd 2000 number of employees 240 2000 website www.netobjects.com netobjects inc. is a software company founded in 1995 by samir arora david kleinberg clement mok and sal arora . the company is best known for the development of netobjects fusion a web design application . in its first phase netobjects was based in redwood city california and ceased operations in 2001 after selling its assets to website pros now web.com and a portfolio of patents to macromedia . in 2009 netobjects was re established as an independent software company . contents 1 introduction 2 key positions 3 launch of netobjects fusion and ipo 4 success on the market and the stock exchange 5 challenges and crisis 6 shift in strategy 7 ibm decisions and sale of netobjects 8 netobjects as a division of website pros 9 netobjects as a re established company 10 main applications of netobjects 11 references introduction edit from 1992 to 1995 the founders of netobjects had worked at rae technology and before that in part at apple computer investigating proto types of web browsers information navigation and web design tools . in 1995 netobjects was founded to market netobjects fusion a new design tool to build web sites . the term web site well known and widespread today was created by the work of samir arora david kleinberg clement mok and sal arora . citation needed and they were awarded the first web site builder patent as inventors . initially netobjects was as a privately held company with the series a venture investment led by rae technology series b by norwest venture partners and venrock associates followed by novell 1 mitsubishi and at & t ventures and the last round by perseus capital l.l.c. in april 1997 ibm invested 100 million to acquire a majority of the company . the deal had a valuation of 150 million . 2 3 4 key positions edit key positions in the company were as follows chairman and chief executive officer ceo samir arora 5 who held executive positions at apple computer and rae technology . executive vice president products and marketing david kleinberg who co founded rae technology with samir arora . chief creative officer clement mok 6 well known as an interactivity designer . vice president of product development and chief technology architect sal arora who was the lead engineer at rae technology . director of product design victor zauderer 7 who had been focusing on developing and designing online systems solutions . additionally susan kare who had built many of the interface elements of the apple macintosh was a consultant to help design the user interface of netobjects fusion . 8 launch of netobjects fusion and ipo edit netobjects fusion 1.0 was released in 1996 . as the first complete web design tool it was seen as groundbreaking by technology observers . netobjects was elected as one of 25 cool technology companies of 1996 by fortune . 9 also in 1996 netobjects fusion won pc magazine s editors choice award . cnet s builder.com elected samir arora one of the web innovators of 1997 10 and in 1998 netobjects received the prestigious gold award from the industrial designers society of america idsa . 11 12 eleven u.s. patents were granted for internet related technologies design and utility . 13 14 15 16 17 releases 2.0 1997 and 3.0 1998 of netobjects fusion again gained positive reactions by the pc press as well as commercial success on the market . in 1999 ibm brought netobjects to the stock exchange with initial public offering while remaining the major shareholder . the initial public offering ipo on nasdaq raised 72 million . the board of directors consisted of six people samir arora as chairman of the board chief executive officer and president and five directors including john sculley from apple computer three representatives from ibm and one from novell . success on the market and the stock exchange edit in the following years numerous product bundling deals 18 were made with nearly all the big pc sellers like dell and hp 19 and with internet service providers like uunet earthlink or 1 & 1 germany . the company itself said it licensed the distribution of more than 15 million copies of netobjects fusion . in 2000 the stock price of neto ticker symbol reached its record high of 45 11 16 usd making netobjects worth 1.5 billion . revenue had started at 7.2 million in 1997 reached 15 million in 1998 23.2 million in 1999 and peaked at 34.2 million for fiscal year 2000 october 1999 september 2000 . on march 3 2000 thestreet.com s adam lashinsky praised netobject s financial performance and its early adoption of e business and more so than many start ups netobjects has managed to deliver on what it has promised . it has slightly beaten the expectations of the friendly analysts who follow it . and quarter by quarter it has steadily reduced its operating losses . plus it got lucky . it was firmly entrenched as a business to business software company before the term gained currency and b2b companies took off . 20 challenges and crisis edit however several factors led netobjects to a crisis starting in 2000 . 21 tough competition from microsoft macromedia and adobe put pressure on market share and falling prices of web design applications affected revenues . 22 also long term revenue effects of bundling deals in the software industry are controversial . 18 netobjects slashed prices for netobjects fusion from release 1.0 to release 4.0 by more than 50 % . older versions stayed in distribution for even lower prices . technical demands for large business web sites changed and required direct access of programmers to html code which netobjects fusion was not designed for . 23 its target market were designers who need complete control over page layout and a similar user interface as desktop publishing applications . shift in strategy edit in 1998 the company had developed and since then distributed netobjects authoring suite 24 25 and the related collage product 26 which as content management solutions were aimed at big businesses and ranged at much higher price levels than netobjects fusion . however ibm and netobjects decided that its target market was the sector of small and medium enterprises so it would focus on its flagship application netobjects fusion which would fit within the scope of these customers . 27 in the beginnings of the concept of software as a service saas the company secondly made a bet on its ability to recognize technological trends 28 and coined a strategy shift to a subscription model . 20 to this end netobjects matrix 29 was developed and gobizgo.com an e commerce solution 30 was started . subscribing web and online services would help small businesses keep pace with the internet . 27 to finance this shift of strategy the netobjects enterprise division with 40 employees along with two applications collage and netobjects authoring suite was sold for 18 million to uk based merant 31 32 merged in 2004 with serena software inc. based in san mateo california . high hopes were based on the netobjects matrix platform and its possibilities to position netobjects as a business service provider . a version for mac was announced 33 and a cooperation with ibm global services was forged . 29 34 ibm decisions and sale of netobjects edit in 2001 revenue decreased sharply 35 a result of changing markets price cuts strategy shift to software as a service . subscription fees from netobjects matrix started coming in but the company faced losses total revenues for the first three quarters of fy 2001 were 4.22 million whilst costs were 7.67 million . 36 netobjects started a raise of an additional 50 million in a private placement with deutsche bank the cash reserves which was not approved by ibm s netobjects board . in the summer of 2001 the markets plummeted with the bursting of the dot com bubble . and ultimately ibm as the majority shareholder decided to sell netobjects . netobjects fusion netobjects matrix including the matrixbuilder bizgobiz and other assets were sold to website pros now web.com a web design and services company based in jacksonville florida 37 additionally a portfolio of seven patents was sold to macromedia now adobe the distributor of dreamweaver the long term main competitor of netobjects fusion . netobjects as a division of website pros edit website pros wsp now web.com went on developing and distributing future versions of netobjects fusion 38 and offering subscription services based on this application representing the mixed business model that was invented at netobjects . license revenue from sales of netobjects fusion reached nearly 3.58 million in 2006 2.4 million in 2007 39 and 2.5 million in 2008 . 40 in may 2009 netobjects fusion was sold . 41 netobjects as a re established company edit in may 2009 netobjects inc. was re established as an independent company . it acquired the netobjects fusion product line from web.com . a smaller part of the amount was transferred instantly while 3.0 million remained payable from future revenue of netobjects fusion sales until 2013 . 41 in terms of management and staff there are no overlapping between the old and new companies with the same name . steve raubenstine who was vice president of the netobjects fusion division at web.com former website pros serves as president and ceo of the new netobjects inc. main applications of netobjects edit netobjects fusion web design tool created in 1996 sold to website pros now web.com in 2001 re purchased by the new established netobjects inc. in 2009 still distributed . the latest release is version 12 released in december 2010 . netobjects authoring server a collaborative web development and content management solution created in 1999 sold to uk based merant in 2000 after merant s merge in 2004 with serena software distributed as collage and discontinued in 2008 . 42 the predecessor of this was netobjects team fusion introduced as a client server application in 1998 . netobjects matrix an online web builder and web services tool invented in 2000 sold to website pros in 2001 . website pros now web.com relied their website building process for customers on the netobjects matrixbuilder platform . 43 references edit novell makes equity investment in netobjects . novell inc. netobjects inc. 1998 10 21 . archived from the original on 2000 12 15 . retrieved june 30 2008 . sreenivas i. satya may 18 1997 . netobjects chooses big blue fusion . silicon valley san jose business journal . retrieved 2008 03 05 . ibm completes investment in netobjects . netobjects inc. april 16 1997 . retrieved march 5 2008 . ibm archives 1997 . ibm archives . ibm . retrieved 2009 01 27 . bio samir arora . samirarora.com . samir arora . archived from the original on october 28 2007 . retrieved march 5 2008 . clement mok career netobjects . clementmok.com . clement mok . retrieved march 5 2008 . victor zaud . zaudhaus.com . zaudhaus llc . archived from the original on 2005 12 18 . retrieved november 7 2007 . netobjects enhances unique world class design team . netobjects inc. january 27 1997 . retrieved march 5 2008 . 1996 25 cool technology companies . clementmok.com . clement mok . retrieved march 5 2008 . shafer dan . builder.com web business the 1st annual web innovator awards samir arora netobjects fusion . cnet builder.com . cnet networks inc. archived from the original on 2001 05 05 . retrieved june 21 2008 . gold industrial design excellence award idea winners 1995 1999 pdf . industrial designers society of america idsa . archived from