The ND bosses are at it again

I’m not complaining. NetDynamics was a great place for me to work and the company’s sale to Sun Microsystem has to be rated as a win too. So I can’t wish anything less than the best to Zack Rinat (ND co-founder and CEO), Yarden Malka (ND’s most important engineer), and Olivia Dillon (ND VP of Engineering) in their new venture, ModelN. C|Net and Industry Standard have brief looks at ModelN’s new positioning, an attempt to move beyond first generation B2B software (this was the thrust of their launch PR a year ago) into what they call Private Business Networks.

For a look at their original plans, see this Red Herring article from July, 2000. Where now only ModelN is spoken of, in this article ModelN is described as a set of three companies (with more to come). Model T1 was to be the center, a technology company that owned significant stakes in the rest, which were to be vertical Internet marketplaces. “The first of these marketplaces [Veranto] is for medical supplies. The second is for construction.” Checking out the Veranto website, only Contact page is publicly accessible, and it asks interested parties to email ModelN. I can’t find any references to either marketplace company on the ModelN website although since the site has no search function it’s difficult to be certain.

I’m not sure it’s really anything more than accepting the reality that public B2B markets are not living up to expectations but I believe Zack and Yarden are probably smart and savvy enough to make this a success too.