Getting an idea to market
Back in 1998/9 whilst working at a financial consultancy in New York, a colleague and I were asked to embark on an initiative to build a product that would speed up risk calculations. Starting from a blank sheet of paper, we threw around a few ideas on how to help clients avoid having to purchase Sun 10000 hardware to solve the problem. Over the next n months of design and development (transatlantic), we created an application which distributed work across multiple nodes that ran our agent software, offered a COM API together with a DHTML user interface for monitoring, schedule and managing jobs (using the Microsoft.XMLHTTP ActiveX control that made web service like calls) and was entirely built in Microsoft COM (interfaces centric in design). Prior to completion of the development, we ported the design to Java since at the time there was interested from a client that had just ventured down the Java road (1998). So essentially we had implemented a compute grid coupled with the beginnings of a web services interface.
Although the technology and product we had created were cool, nobody else within the consultancy really understood what we had created. The sales people at the financial consultancy didn’t really understand the value, so when it came time to demo the applications and explain the concepts to an investment bank the meetings didn’t generate any consulting engagements, and the framework/product ended up being sidelined.
Within a year of the work being shelved DataSynapse launched with a product that provide similar features to our product, but with a few additional bells and whistles. As is often the case, having an idea is one thing, developing it is another, but the real challenge is getting it to market.
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