Maria Lourdes C. Capilitan

Sysanal(OOA)

June 26, 2008

Case Study

Steve Perlman

(Cofounder, WebTV)

            Steve Perlman is a leading expert on display technology created Web using television. He was one of those people who put color to Mac and he is also one of those who create systems for networking games. In his 3 days for the WebTV he called his friend Bruce Leak and they decided to have a startup. As Steve Perlman says that each company have a vision of creating something great that people would love. A synchronized view of the world will help a lot. Respect each other so that you will be decent people. People should be very very closely bonded, work together and projected a common vision.

            Steve was so interested in making television at General Magic, the company also want videos stuff , so Steve create one for them but the problem is the company have financial problem. He met Catapult Entertainment, Sega and Nintendo. They created a production in 6 months. Steve was not an engineering major but instead a liberal arts student but his engineering skill is just his hobby. He help Netscape 1.0 working. All the video games back then have only 240 lines instead of 480 lines. After creating WebTV they attracted Phil Goldman, he is a developer and created Multi Finder for Mac and wrote a lot of Operating System for General Magic device.

They also met Marvin Davis a financier in Hollywood. In April 1995- July 1995, they are working with business plan. When Steve Perlman started a company he have 3 founders these are; Bruce Leak, Phil Goldman and himself Steve Perlman. After the death of Philip they begun to ask Sony as their supporter so Sony agree. In manufacturing the product they didn’t have any commitment so they went to Davies and they got a million and a half for manufacturing. They were running so slow so Perlman mortgaged his house. They didn’t tell it to the employees because they will panic.

They are going to talk to other investors such as Venture Capital. After wasting 2 months to Jeez they are now talking to VC but still no one invested to them. They found Brentwood Venture Capital, Jeff Brody is about to invest a $4.5 million but Sony reminded that Perlman’s group have commitment to them. Sony withdraw their support.

After Philips come back and deal with them it become their key to change. They hired a consultant, Spencer Tall of Asia Pacific Ventures who knows and speak Japanese fluently, he also have personal relationship with the CEO of Sony by that time. The CEO is Idei-San. He send his CTO to check what’s happening on the WEBTV.

Perlman and others are still in the development stage were there is a lot of Bugs and system crashes. They still grab their last chance. 15 mins. After the CTO arrive at the place of Perlman giving the best comfort that they could give they present the WebTV. They are so bothered that might happened but still the WebTV run so smoothly and perfect. Finally they got the commitment with Sony.

             WebTV is dedicated to people who might not have computers at home. They took a lot of time designing it and it is very hard for them. This project was inspired by the Apple II that uses TV as their monitor. He continued asking in Apple who can interview and Allan Kay came to visit. The WebTV was dislike by Microsoft because they are very cautious on any threat to their company. The WebTV was profitable and now become MSNTV.

Perlman said that the worst thing that can happen to a start up is the founding team and leading that do not get along. None of them doubted that they are going to succeed and none of them stopped in giving questions whether or not they rusted each other.