When first announced in August 1996, the Bellevue, Washington-based Cognisoft called IntelliServ "a revolutionary intranet application." Translation: a push-media server with FireFly-style collaborative filtering capability.
The company secured an endorsement from Starbucks, garnered much ink in the trade press, announced beta availability in February 1997, and promised a final product in "the first half of 1997."
But in January 1997, with clients signed and waiting, the company was gobbled up by Verity for US$10 million. The new owner promptly killed the project. "They said, 'What are we doing with this IntelliServ shit? Let's clean house,'" said one industry observer close to the deal. "They took their medicine and wiped [the slate] clean."
Pre-Verity, former Cognisoft president Ken Schneider called IntelliServ "the first killer app for end users in the intranet space." Now, a pull-down form on the ghostly Cognisoft Web site offers a glimpse into the state of the push revolution. Selecting the link "When will Cognisoft's first products be available?" returns a telling error: "Document contains no data."
