Just what did Netscape get for $180 million?

Kiva Software Corp. can look back fondly at its nearly three-year history as an independent company. The company's line of server and developer products has received kudos from industry analysts, awards from publications and business from innovative Internet commerce firms such as Internet Shopping Network, Inc., E*TRADE Group, Inc. and Travelocity. But Kiva is independent no more, having been acquired effective Dec. 2 by Netscape Communications Corp. for $180 million in stock. Network World Senior Editor Andy Eddy discussed the whirlwind acquisition with Kiva founder and CEO Keng Lim.

Q. Beyond the obvious financial benefits, what was Kiva's incentive to accept Netscape's offer?

A. Companies like Oracle [Corp.] and Microsoft [Corp.] have introduced similar products, but they aren't as robust as ours. We see it as critical to have a strong partner like Netscape to help promote Kiva Enterprise Server as an industry standard. Having access to Netscape's sales force, systems integrator channels, partners and professional services will allow us to scale a lot faster. We have close to 50 customers, and with the support from Netscape we can increase the customer base by 10 or 20 times in the next couple of months.

It also offers leverage and scaling of economies. Netscape has an enormous brand name and an enormous marketing machine. To be able to plug Kiva into that marketing push is going to offer big leverage for us to be able to increase the visibility of the company tremendously.

Q. What does Netscape get out of the Kiva acquisition?

A. It positions Netscape to be an enterprise software company. Netscape has been viewed as an Internet company with great products and technology for messaging, collaboration, Web servers and Web browsers. Having Kiva immediately broadens its product offerings to now address business-critical applications. With the addition of Kiva, Netscape completes its product offering end-to-end, to be able to address intranet, extranet and Internet visions.

Q. What's the effect of the acquisition on Kiva's existing customers?

A. In effect, it has very little downside impact. Most customers are actually very excited about the combination.

Most of them are already Netscape and Kiva customers. With this combination, we will be able to bring more positive impact to the customers, such as providing a higher level of customer support. Instead of going to two different channels to support two products, customers can now go to one support channel. It's one-stop shopping for customers to get all their solutions: information management, content management, collaborative applications, and now with Kiva, business-critical applications from Netscape.

Q. There's potential confusion with both Netscape and Kiva offering products called Enterprise Server. What are the differences, and how will the products be differentiated in the future?

A. We're working on a new product strategy and a new product, and we're in the process of renaming the products. We will make an announcement sometime this year or early next year on how these two products will be differentiated, and new targets in terms of how customers should be using them.

Kiva Enterprise Server is targeted for business-critical, enterprise-class applications, for a company that wants to automate business processes and build a big e-commerce application.

The business-critical conceptual application requires critical system services and application infrastructures to be able to develop, deploy and manage the applications over the Internet. Netscape Enterprise Server provides a solution for enterprise-strength content management, and also collaborative and work force applications.

Netscape also provides a product called Netscape SuiteSpot, which provides key infrastructure solutions for security, directory, administration and other products that are much more of a fundamental foundation to tie the organization together on an intranet. Eventually, we'll integrate Kiva technology into SuiteSpot [which includes Netscape Enterprise Server], but Kiva Enterprise Server will be offered as a separate product line.

Q. What about Kiva's other products?

A. We are still on target to ship all the other products, and there are no plans to change or stop any of those products. One is Kiva Development Studio, which we're going to continue to ship and support. We'll be aggressive, taking some of Netscape's technologies and adding them to Development Studio to make it the foundation for the development tools and solutions for the Netscape ONE platform.

The other product is Kiva Extension Toolkit. There's absolutely no duplication within Netscape on that tool, so we'll continue to build and ship that within Netscape. Netscape had been pushing very hard onto legacy and client/server integrations. The Kiva Extension Toolkit is meant to do that, so immediately with the offering we'll be able to plug in to that strategic direction for Netscape.

Q. Will this replace Netscape SuiteTools?

A. It will actually work hand-in-hand with SuiteTools 2.0 products, and be very tightly integrated. It may [end up in the SuiteTools package], but at this point our goal is to continue to ship Kiva Development Studio as a separate product.

Q. Where do you personally go from here?

A. I am committed to stay on to make it successful. I'll be heading up a new business unit called the Applications Server Platform Division as general manager and vice president. I will continue to define the strategy and product-development efforts of Kiva technologies under Netscape. I'm working to carve out the new directions for Netscape to go after in the enterprise market.