Vermeer Technologies Incorporated
Encyclopedia
Vermeer Technologies Incorporated was a software company founded in 1994 by Charles H. Ferguson
and Randy Forgaard. Its products were FrontPage
, a website
/webpage development tool and Personal Web Server, a web server to complement developing in FrontPage. They launched the initial version of FrontPage on October 2, 1995.
Vermeer was funded by Matrix Partners
, Sigma Partners, and Atlas Venture
.
The company was purchased by Microsoft
for US$133 million in January 1996 ($ in present-day terms) in order to acquire FrontPage as a new weapon in the browser wars
.
The company's birth, development and sale was the subject of Ferguson's 1999 book High St@kes, No Prisoners.
The start of the company was described in a Harvard Business School case : "Vermeer Technologies (A): A Company is Born" (HBS 9-397-078)
Even after Microsoft acquired FrontPage, the software continued to store proprietary configuration settings in folders that started with _vti. The letters VTI stand for Vermeer Technologies Inc.
Charles H. Ferguson
Charles Henry Ferguson is the founder and president of Representational Pictures, Inc., director and producer of No End In Sight: The American Occupation of Iraq and Inside Job , which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary...
and Randy Forgaard. Its products were FrontPage
Microsoft FrontPage
Microsoft FrontPage was a WYSIWYG HTML editor and web site administration tool from Microsoft for the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems. It was branded as part of the Microsoft Office suite from 1997 to 2003...
, a website
Website
A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...
/webpage development tool and Personal Web Server, a web server to complement developing in FrontPage. They launched the initial version of FrontPage on October 2, 1995.
Vermeer was funded by Matrix Partners
Matrix Partners
Matrix Partners is a US based private equity investment firm focusing on venture capital investments. The firm invests in seed and early stage companies in the United States and India, particularly in the software, communications, semiconductors, data storage, Internet or wireless sectors.The firm...
, Sigma Partners, and Atlas Venture
Atlas Venture
Atlas Venture is an international early-stage venture capital firm that invests in communications, information technology, and life sciences companies. From the late 1990s through the mid-2000s the firm was leading investor in startup companies in both the U.S. and Europe...
.
The company was purchased by Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
for US$133 million in January 1996 ($ in present-day terms) in order to acquire FrontPage as a new weapon in the browser wars
Browser wars
Browser wars is a metaphorical term that refers to competitions for dominance in usage share in the web browser marketplace. The term is often used to denote two specific rivalries: the competition that saw Microsoft's Internet Explorer replace Netscape's Navigator as the dominant browser during...
.
The company's birth, development and sale was the subject of Ferguson's 1999 book High St@kes, No Prisoners.
The start of the company was described in a Harvard Business School case : "Vermeer Technologies (A): A Company is Born" (HBS 9-397-078)
Even after Microsoft acquired FrontPage, the software continued to store proprietary configuration settings in folders that started with _vti. The letters VTI stand for Vermeer Technologies Inc.