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Bluestone's XML-ent future
BY ROBIN SCHREIER HOHMAN
 Bluestone Software sells Web application servers, certainly not the sexiest of Internet technologies but most assuredly where some big money is.
 The application server market nearly tripled from about $150 million last year to $412 million this year, according to a survey by Forrester Research. Even better, Forrester is predicting that the market will grow fivefold by 2002, to $2.1 billion.
With Sapphire/Web, an application framework that shepherds data from back-end systems to the new world of the Web, and XML-Server, which translates nearly any kind of data into Extensible Markup Language (XML), Bluestone is poised for growth, analysts believe.
Bluestone Software makes our list of companies to watch on the strength of its products and its vision.
When Sapphire/Web was launched four years ago, the company was ahead of the pack with its Web focus. Last year, Bluestone was again on the cutting edge, this time with XML-Server, part of a new class of application servers made to produce, transport or store XML documents.
Bluestone's XML-Server is unique because it dynamically translates non-XML data into XML. That ability helps make back-end business applications and data available for e-commerce and other Internet applications.
The company also has marketing savvy, releasing innovative, affordable tools to broaden XML's appeal, such as Visual XML, a tool kit for building XML applications.
Last month, Kevin Kilroy celebrated his one-year anniversary as Bluestone's president. He was promoted from vice president of sales in March 1998 with the goal of getting the word out about Bluestone.
"At that time, Bluestone had a fifth-generation product, but no mind share," he says.
Kilroy, along with key employees hired away from the likes of Oracle, SAP and Platinum Technology, earned Bluestone a 426% increase in licensed sales last year. Kilroy expects sales to double this year. How much money that increase represents is not something the otherwise talkative Kilroy is willing to discuss, blaming his silence on the quiet period demanded by Bluestone's upcoming public offering.
In the coming year, Bluestone will emphasize personalization and content management, Kilroy says. He also expects the company to continue growing; so far, the head count hovers around 160.
One caveat: XML is still young, and analysts don't expect the market to grow appreciably this year. Still, with companies such as Dreyfus Service Corp.; Conexant, formerly Rockwell Semiconductor System; and MCI WorldCom signing on to Sapphire/Web, the company might be able to afford the wait.
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