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The Weightless Laptop
Margo Lipschitz Sugarman
 FOUR'S A COMPANY: BmyPC founders Yuval Eyal, Eran Pfeffer and Dror Shalev with new CEO Yossi Cohen |
Imagine packing a suitcase for a trip, leaving it at home � and still having everything you need. In computer terms, that�s what BmyPC is all about.
The young Tel Aviv-based company � it has existed for only a year, and its founders are all under 30 � has developed software that, virtually, does away with the need to take a laptop on your travels. Users can simply set up a fully equipped desktop on the BmyPC website, including their own personal e-mail, text and program files � and then access it from any Internet-linked computer, anywhere in the world. Access will come through Internet service providers or portals, which purchase the service for their customers and users.
It�s one of those �how come nobody came up with this ages ago� ideas, like the ICQ instant-message software three years ago. In fact, the energetic atmosphere at BmyPC is reminiscent of what was going on at Mirabilis, before that Israeli Internet innovation was sold to America Online for $407 million in the summer of 1998. The tone is set by BmyPC�s three founders, Jerusalemites Eran Pfeffer, Dror Shalev and Yuval Eyal, all 28 years old.
BmyPC is now headquartered in a converted apartment on Rothschild Boulevard, in the Tel Aviv business district, having relocated from the one-room flat its pioneers used at the start. When the staff grew to eight people, recalls Pfeffer, the vice president for marketing and sales, �it started becoming really unpleasant, so we moved to one half of our current premises.�
Now there are 25 people, and BmyPC has taken over the other half of the floor as well. The place reflects the spartan tastes of an infant Israeli startup, with minimal furnishings and no extraneous accessories.
Pfeffer, a former Jerusalem DJ, won�t begin talking till a few black BmyPC T-shirts are brought in. Then he starts explaining the concept in detail. Users go into the company�s site (www.BmyPC.com), register a name and password, and then place the files they need onto a personalized desktop. To summon up their virtual desktops � which run on any operating system, or on web-enabled cellphones, Palm Pilots and even TVs � from anywhere, users go into the website and type in their names and passwords.
BmyPC also provides additional services to users: CommTouch free e-mail, the Babylon translation software and Bantu, a messaging service that allows users to communicate in any language. This early emphasis on multilingualism works well for BmyPC�s first client: ICI Campus, a European-based Internet portal for students, which operates in French, Spanish, Italian and German and will soon also offer sites in Dutch and English. �Students are an important market for us,� says Pfeffer, explaining a special function that allows various users to access shared files, so that students or colleagues in different places can work together preparing, say, a school project or a business report. �They don�t always work in the same place, and they often have to share material.�
Like the software itself, the company�s business model is aimed at low-budget users who can�t afford expensive laptop computers. Rather than being marketed to individual users, the service is set up to be sold to Internet portals like ICI Campus, which pay a set fee for each user and employ the system to make sure that surfers keep coming back to their site. There�s also ad space on the desktop.
Internet Service Providers who seek to offer their customers added-value products are another target group � and Pfeffer says that one American ISP, World Net Services of Utah, has already signed.
In the space of a year, BmyPC has gathered almost $3 million in investment capital: an initial $330,000 from Technoplast, an Israeli firm that specializes in plastic products, and $2.5 million (based on a company value of $8 million after money) from British venture capital fund Startup Station, Idea Lab of the U.S., and local investors Meir Laser and Doron Steider.
When the investments started pouring in, the three young Jerusalemites � they decided to set up shop in Tel Aviv because of the lack of programmers in the capital � hired an experienced CEO: Yossi Cohen, 43, who spent eight years in 8-200, one of the army�s technology units and was a founder of Unique Data International software firm. Cohen was promptly shipped off on a recruiting mission to Silicon Valley. �We have to have Americans without my accent to sell in the U.S.,� Pfeffer observes.
Since the basic product was only released in May, BmyPC numbers its users in the thousands rather than the millions. But Pfeffer says there�s plenty of room for expansion and its servers can handle as many users as can sign on. No one�s talking, yet, about an exit strategy � either through an initial public offering on a stock exchange, or a Mirabilis-like sale of the company. For now, its founders are convinced that they�ve got the next must-have Internet product, and are busy building a user base. The big money? When you�re 28, there�s time to wait.
Business
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