Ray Ozzie

Ozzie's Iris Associates, an offshoot of Lotus Development Corp. formed in 1984, removed itself as best it could from the parent company to concentrate on development. The team moved off campus so it would not be distracted. Ozzie was so successful separating Iris from Lotus that in 1994 a Lotus public relations person taking a journalist to Iris for an interview could not even find the place.

Some credit Ozzie,and Notes,with paving the way for the Web itself, a notion that would probably embarrass the guy. Notes helped people "realize that the promise of the Web, the value of connected people and computers, was true," said Dan Bricklin, chief technology officer and founder of Trellix Corp., Waltham, Mass.

Bricklin and Bob Frankston at Software Arts hired Ozzie out of Data General Corp. before Lotus. As inventor of the electronic spreadsheet, Bricklin, who was inducted into the CRN Industry Hall of Fame last year, is no slouch when it comes to visionary status. "When Notes came out people didn't get it and didn't understand why it mattered. Companies like Price Waterhouse figured out that it worked and the importance of anywhere-to-anywhere connectivity."

Ozzie credits early supporters, notably Mitchell Kapor, the founder and former chief executive of Lotus. Kapor said he understands why Ozzie, who worked on Lotus Symphony, had to get away from Lotus to be fully creative.

"1-2-3 was so dominant at Lotus it was hard to get anything else started," said Kapor, now a partner at Accel Partners, Palo Alto, Calif. "The whole idea of a greenhouse, nearby but not on the premises, that would do product development on its own but be tied into sales, marketing and distribution to Lotus. . . . I was absolutely willing to try it. I just believe you have to be creative to work with the absolutely best people," Kapor said.

Kapor and Ozzie set up "trust incentives," laying out the ground rules between Lotus and Iris. This contractual relationship specified "many, many provisions in which each party had rights that the other party really felt were valuable and, in some cases, threatening if exercised," Ozzie said. "Both Iris and Lotus had some degree of independence and some degree of mutual commitment. Each party really got what it needed and neither party completely got what it wanted. It was clear to both that we were mutually better off together than apart."

And how. The conventional wisdom is that Notes saved Lotus' bacon, as Microsoft Corp.'s Excel overcame the Lotus 1-2-3 juggernaut and was the motivating factor behind IBM Corp.'s $3.5 billion buyout of Lotus in 1995.

Don Bulens, now chief executive of Trellix and the Lotus executive credited with building the channel for Notes, which started out as a direct sell, said Notes was an employment generator for as many as 100,000 people. "Notes created a multibillion-dollar industry . . . thousands and thousands of people got jobs because of it. . . . Through 1996 there were something like 18,000 companies who had some, if not all, of their business dedicated to Notes."

Ozzie claims when he started out with Notes he was so in tune with development that he was "really naive" about other things. "At that time I had no idea of what I was getting into. . . . I had kind of a blissful notion that this other company [Lotus] would deal with getting the product to market. I didn't understand channels."

That has changed. Ozzie now heads Groove Networks Inc., a highly secretive venture in Beverly, Mass., backed by Accel Partners and others.

What strikes Bulens and others is the reverence with which Ozzie is held. People just plain like the guy, and while it is not unusual for a journalist doing a profile to talk to lots of friends, boosters and competitors, it is highly unusual that not a single person,even folks at Microsoft who ate crow while Notes prevailed,will not say anything negative, even off the record.

"Ray is so thoughtful and pragmatic and cares so much about things including people . . . when his products do well, people feel great about that," said Bricklin.

"This is truly a nice guy, a gentleman. He is soft-spoken and seems uncomfortable to be the father of something that has something like 50 million users," said Sheldon Laube, chairman and chief executive of CenterBeam Inc., Santa Clara, Calif. Laube was chief technology officer of Price Waterhouse, one of the first and most influential Notes proponents in the user community.

Niceness aside, Ozzie knows his stuff. Microsoft Chairman and Chief Executive Bill Gates, not normally known for doling out praise to competitors, once called him one of the best programmers in the universe.

Laube echoes that sentiment. "He is truly one of the great programmers in the world with a vision. What's unusual is he has complex visions that can change the world. Unlike the age of the Internet where everything is done in a month, Ray has visions that are extremely textured, detailed and broad . . . that have implications."

Ozzie said that is one reason he went off on his own,to have time to work on something big without the pressure of being a public company. "You can't be under a microscope, or be forced to ship before you have flushed out your idea. [At Groove Networks] it's been about 18 months now and we're not there yet. [New products] need that space; this is not a cookie-cutter thing."

Ozzie will not say what Groove Networks, situated in a renovated shoe factory, is working on. He will say he is still big on helping people work together and using technology to ease communication. "What gets my juices going is technology in general. PCs are immensely powerful . . . wireless, telecom are taking off."