Graphon's stock doubled in November. Early that month the company took a Linuxward tack with its new Linux Bridge product, and the acquisition of a technology patent that protects its whole Bridge series of products, which allow users to operate applications on other platforms — essentially using those platforms' workstations as terminals for apps that run on servers elsewhere. In the midst of this Graphon also announced an OEM deal with Corel, which was a big hit at Comdex with its new Linux distribution and applicatoin suite. One could almost see the stock rise as the implications (especially Windows-to-Linux migration) became apparent.
Senior Editor Doc Searls spoke with Robin Ford and Walt Keller, the couple who founded Graphon. Robin is EVP, Sales and Marketing, and Walt is CEO and President. The talk was recorded, and here is the edited transcript.
Doc Searls: What's going on between you guys and Corel?
Robin Ford: Years ago Corel started developing a technology called J-Bridge, which allows you to access a Windows application from any desktop over any kind of connection. They were doing it because they needed to web-enable their existing apps. But Graphon does that sort of technology for the UNIX market, and for Linux. We allow people to access a UNIX or Linux application from any desktop over any connection. Which is really great because you can do an X Window application over a low bandwidth line and it's like running an X server on your desktop. Well, they ran into some challenges in their technology about this time last year. They had the core technology — the server part was coming along real well — but they needed to put together the protocols and the client. They were partners of ours for other reasons already; and as they got more and more familiar with our technology, the more they realized that we do this stuff for a living. We are the UNIX pioneers. It more sense for them to carry this forward. We had the low bandwidth protocol... So we acquired this technology, which was unfinished at the time and integrated it with our software.
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Robin Ford: We call it Win Bridge and we launched it here at the show. We've also OEMed our technology to Corel. So any Windows based applications can be served to any desktop. And any Linux based application can be served to any desktop. Over any connection.
Walt Keller: The exciting news for Corel is that they now can assert very strong support into the Linux desktop. They can take any of their Windows applications and run them on those Linux desktops. By that I mean the application is still running in an NT environment, but you can veiw and manipulate it from your Linux desktop as if it was running locally. That's the beauty of this bridging tecnnology. Complete cross-platform capabilities.
Doc Searls: So this has all kinds of implications for support, for migration...
Walt Keller: Yes. It lets people easily migrate into the Linux world. It's a difficult thing for most enterprises. They can't say "Hey, we're gonna switch to Linux," and it's done. You need a migration path, and this technology provides that.
Doc Searls: How is this playing out in enterprises you know?
Walt Keller: Well, the most interesting stuff at the moment — to us, at least — is in China. They don't want to deal with sole-source suppliers. So they really like the idea of Linux and are very committed to it. Yet when you visit the schools, they're training on Microsoft. But the bridge between one and the other is a migration path that we pave. They're figured out ways to do that with server-based technology.
Doc Searls: So you've got three bridges here.
Robin Ford: Linux Bridge, Win Bridge and Unix Bridge, each components of a product called Bridges.
Doc Searls: How do you see it playing out in the Linux movement in general.
Robin Ford: Everybody agrees that the next step for Linux is the desktop; and to be successful Linux has to be able to run Windows applications. Corel knows this, and they've been very smart about their strategy. That's why they've OEMed the Linux Bridge technology. And why it's very hot already, even though we aren't shiping ourselves until the end of December. When we were on ZDTV, it was the most outrageous thing. Here was ZDTV talking about server-based computing, serving up Linux apps. They invited people to come to the playpen part of our site, download a Java applet that allows them to run WordPerfect running on Red Hat on our server.It was amazing. We had thousands of people registering to download the Linux server portion of of our product.
Walt Keller: What knocked people out was that they could sit there on their PCs and run Linux without ever loading it. An interesting concept, and a great way to start down the road to Linux. Or to teach it over the Internet.
Doc Searls: I want to ask you guys about this patent that seems to be a source of some controversy.
Walt Keller: We discovered the controversy entirely by surprise. Obviously it is not our intention to be out there stifling innovation, especially in the Linux community.But actually when we became aware of the patent because some of the people we have up in Seattle were developing this technology a long time ago. We thought it was in the best interest of our shareholders and customers that we acquire this patent. It covered taking a Windows technology to a UNIX desktop using the X server — in other words, right in the path of our own product development. So our goal was just to get it, acquire it, and remove it as a potential problem, for the good of everybody.
Doc Searls: That's interesting. I wonder sometimes if the reason to get a patent like this is as prophylaxis against the Jay Walkers of the world.
Walt Keller: It is. These things are like baseball cards. You've got to trade them. If you don't have any, you don't get to trade.
Doc Searls: You give yourself the right to be the alpha developer in this space.
Walt Keller: It's a very strong form of protection. The truth is you can't work in this industry without tripping over patents. And a patent of this type is a very strong one. So we had to have it. Better us than somebody else.
Doc Searls: So you want the Linux community to trust you to use it well.
Walt Keller: That's right.
Doc Searls: Let's go back to origins here. For years you guys were known as a hardware company. What happened?
Walt Keller: About three years ago we saw the light. But before that we were in the terminal business, selling into the X community. We did quite well with that, but the PC won the desktop. And what we really discovered was thin client computing. We developed this technology for UNIX in the late Eighties where the desktop, the client side, was very thin and all the heavy lifting happened on the server. But we were swimming against the tide in those days, very much against the flow of what people thought client-server should be.
Robin Ford: Desktop-centric.
Walt Keller: And we were going the opposite way. So finally we decided to get out of the hardware business, take this technology, make it work on the desktop. And we found we were right in the middle of this new Internet conversation. Much more server-centric. Java. Sun snapped it up. Then IBM, and boy: we were off. We funded ourselves last year, then went public last July, and it's been a real ride ever since.
Doc Searls: I've always been interested in the soul of a company — where it comes from.
Robin Ford: We're a family oriented company. In case you didn' t notice, Walt and I are married. And the place is very much a family operation.
Doc Searls: Your kids involved?
Robin Ford: Yes. Our daughter works at the company. We welcome people bringing their kids in during the day. It's not unusual to hear little ones in the background. Our people work very hard, often for long hours, so we try our best to integrate having a life with also being a Silicon Valley company. Althought we've been around for a long time, we behave very much like a start-up. That's our energy. Very entrepreneurial. Very open-door. Not very hierarchical. Walt is involved in almost everything that's going on at the company. It's not a strickt reporting structure. Just very entrepreneurial. Also very productive.
Doc Searls: You know each other. That must count for something.
Walt: Everybody there knows each other. Lots of non-verbal communications. And this sense, this value system we have, applies to acquisitions too. We picked up this group in Seattle. The people there had been together for years, and wanted to be in on what we have going here. The fit has been excellent.
Doc Searls: You've been around since what, '82?
Walt Keller: '82, yeah. Long time.
Doc Searls: Were you married when you started the business?
Robin Ford: No. We got married in '85. But we were together for a long time before we started out. We just finally admitted to ourselves that it would work out. (Laughter.)
Doc Searls: That's a great story.
Robin Ford: It is a great story. We've had fun. And we're having more fun than ever now.