InformationWeek

May 1, 2000

Redefining Business:
StartUp

Up The River--On Video
Technology can do so much to improve quality of life. Like, say, shortening your stint in the joint.

The New Jersey state court system has wired all 21 county courthouses and several jails for videoconferencing using a Lucent Technologies system, a move it expects will deliver dramatic efficiency improvements and lower costs.

Judge Richard J. Williams, the acting director of court administration, expects quick adoption in civil trials, cutting costs for such things as paying expert witnesses for travel time. Constitutional concerns--includ-ing the right to confront one's accuser--will limit the technology's use in criminal trials. But it can eliminate the need to shuttle prisoners between courthouses and jail for routine proceedings such as bail hearings.

For someone who's about to be released on bail, that saves more than just the transportation costs, Williams explains. "That's half a day you don't have to spend in jail."
--Chris Murphy

All In The Family
A few years ago, singer John Fogerty couldn't perform some of his own songs because of a legal dispute with his former record company over his old band, Creedence Clearwater Revival. Until recently, Budget Rent A Car Corp. knew the feeling. It had to use the Web address DriveBudget.com because Budget.com was already taken--by one of the company's own franchisees.

After a year of negotiations, Budget bought its name. The investment has paid off: Budget's online reservations have gone from 3.5% of the company's total business to 7%, says Mary Murcott, VP of worldwide reservation services for parent company Budget Group Inc. in Carrollton, Texas.

Murcott insists there are no hard feelings between Budget and the business partner that beat it to the URL punch. Says Murcott, "We have some very smart franchisees."
--Clinton Wilder

No Wireless Waiting
Along with the hype that's chasing the wireless Internet, a healthy dose of money and talent is moving that way as well.

The San Francisco startup Brience Corp. has lured $200 million in venture capital and the CEO from a Big Five consulting firm. And the problem the company says it will solve doesn't even exist yet.

Brience writes software that lets a company keep the same infrastructure it uses to deliver Web content to customers or employees today, but it translates the content to the optimal format for new broadband channels and wireless devices such as mobile phones and Palm Pilots.

Rod McGeary left his job as co-CEO of KPMG Consulting to lead Brience, as did KPMG chief strategist Keyur Patel. Financing comes from Chicago private-equity firm GTCR Golder Rauner.

Patel says the convenience of wireless communications and broadband will mean more demand for information, forcing companies to make sure their best customers get preference. "The impact of broadband has not been thoroughly thought through in many organizations," Patel says. "Our intent is to have a solution for a problem that is coming soon."
--Chris Murphy

New, New Economy
Unleash potential, retain talent, reward shareholders. Sounds like the CEO of an established company preparing to spin off its Internet division in an initial public offering. But after April's stock-market storm, Bell & Howell Co. of Skokie, Ill., used those words to explain why it's junking the spin-off plan and instead will keep the

Net initiatives and sell the old-line businesses. Bell & Howell has expanded from film projectors into business equipment. Its Web businesses include the library information system Proquest.

CEO James Roemer says finding a buyer for the business will be easier than taking a Net company public today. Says Roemer, "It reduces execution risk."
--Chris Murphy

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