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Sun Microsystems, on the other hand, badly needed software like Netscape's, and the other players that were shaping up in the Internet server software market were not good matches for Sun's hardware.

IBM Corp. was a direct hardware competitor, Microsoft Corp. was a sworn enemy, and Oracle Corp. was just getting into the game and was too unpredictable. Sun, therefore, eagerly agreed to shepherd the growth of the parts of Netscape that AOL was least able to embrace. And the alliance was formed.

IPlanet was then and is still an alliance run between AOL and Sun, and is officially billed as iPlanet E-Commerce Solutions, a Sun-Netscape alliance. Each of iPlanet's 2,500 employees gets a check from Sun or AOL; if there's a technology acquisition to be made, it is done by one of the parents on iPlanet's behalf. Serving two masters can be a nightmare, and indeed for the first 15 months or so, straight-shooting president and general manager Mark Tolliver struggled mightily to build a functioning team. Netscape's engineering talent either fled or fought with new counterparts from Sun. The sales and marketing staffs stumbled and bumbled toward a coherent message. The last six months, however, have shown that Tolliver's work may be paying off, and iPlanet's future appears to be brightening.

But iPlanet has some damage control to tackle. One of the most detrimental remnants of iPlanet's early struggle is the perception left in the market. Customers interviewed for this article universally told of iPlanet sales and support staff not knowing its own products and often remarked on inconsistencies or poor implementation of products. All those experiences were at least six months old, and some were a year old, which suggests that for many potential customers the all-important first impression was a bad one. IPlanet seems to be doing better now, but that can't erase the damage already done.

A Rose by Any Other Name

Tolliver would rather you didn't think too much about iPlanet's unique lineage, much less some of the negatives it suffered early on. In fact, iPlanet's name and marketing are designed to put products front and center, and corporate dynamics in the background. Yet those dynamics beg examination. When AOL purchased Netscape, dot-com fever was sizzling. Rather than work for AOL, a good many of the Netscape engineers, marketers and sales gurus jumped ship for any start-up with an interesting idea or, in lieu of that, an eight-figure bank account.

On top of that, considerable energy was spent early on to cull overlapping products and fill gaping holes. For example, Sun had been pushing its own application server, but the alliance decided to dump that server in favor of the Netscape version brought through the earlier purchase of Kiva.

So as the first year of the alliance wore on, a battle of attrition was waged, and a coherent product set was painstakingly created -- for the most part. But in that time, iPlanet's competition was just as busy. Microsoft has a strong following both within the service-provider ranks and among midsize business customers. Particularly among the latter, Microsoft has the ability to entice them with the stem-to-stern promise of tools, platforms, application and management systems--albeit with some holes. Microsoft's lure is and always has been a fairly complete product story and strong reseller/integrator ties.

Unlike Microsoft and iPlanet, IBM, which has turned up as iPlanet's other powerful competitor, does not depend primarily on a strong software suite to attract third-party integrators. Instead, the company uses its renowned professional-services arm as the primary enticement to customers.

Those that get in bed with IBM through the Global Services Consulting group can rest assured that while they may not have gotten the least expensive or most elegant solution, they've bought one that works more or less the way they want. In an environment with ever-evolving standards, that's an advantage for any company whose forte lies somewhere other than in deploying and running e-commerce systems.

Given that IBM and Microsoft concentrate on serving those who don't aspire to grow the in-house expertise required to remain on the bleeding edge of technology, it makes sense for iPlanet to take a different path. And iPlanet is focused on serving the sector of market harboring the Internet at its heart. So the typical iPlanet customer isn't looking for hand-holding (á la IBM) or over-simplified point-and-click development and management (Microsoft).

Instead, the iPlanet customer seeks robust software that can be tuned and honed to provide large-scale service as efficiently as possible. Therefore, that customer had better fully understand that a good bit of customizing and optimizing is part and parcel of an iPlanet product purchase.