Annaliza E. Nebres

OOC

Case study 13

Steve Perlman

(Co Founder, WebTV) 

WebTV was one of the startups built buy Steve Perlman. He just has theory that the web could look as good as TV screen as it did on the computer monitor.  Perlman was one of the leading experts on display technology and he helped bring color to Apple, Mac. His first startup was the Catapult Entertainment, he built one of the first systems on the network games and how he wanted to bring web into people living room. After that he sold Philips and Sony to the public on 1997 WebTV has acquired by Microsoft and now it is called MSNTV.

He has a perception of making “television interactive” not just you watch up and down but you can also be able to find what they want and be able to view it. But they have a problem with the outlet because there is no device to receive it. Nobody wants to buy devise because there was no content and there was no content because the device weren’t out there when the General Magic didn’t know that he is working for WebTV, he worked 2 ½ days for gen. Magic staff and 2 ½ days for his own but at the time they’re known it they want to do video stuff too. They’ve partner with THQ, which is a video game retail outlets, so they could get the product quickly. 

They were running a big online service business and they need to help of PacBell, a phone company to bring T1 line there in a car dealership. At first they think it’s a joke but sooner they believed them, that they were a startup using an old car dealership to set up an online service. WebTV have three founders are Bruce Leak, Phil Goldman and Steve Perlman but when Phil passed away they hired people and get things going. He called up Sony and Sony was interested in the startup that they would do. They want to go forward with WebTV. They brand WebTv with a Sony logo and long at the time and today, were a stronger brand in the US.

There’s a big difference between a startup in Silicon Valley in the East Coast. At the end they recognize that WebTV was a profitable thing for them, because they ended up investing in it and now it becomes MSNTV. Over it 8 years in market WebTV grossed over $1.3 Billion.

Three things I’ve learned are; first doing a startup will risks everything even your health. If you’re not a healthy person maybe you easily give up. Perlman overcomes those sleepless nights. Second is even though you’re not a computer major but your heart and your love are in what are you doing you will succeed. Third is WebTV program have gone many obstacles before they successfully launched the program. No one of them doubted that they were going to succeed. Their teams persevere.