This is my fifth Founders' Forum column. In previous months I've written to you about the history of the Internet and the history of WebTV Networks. I've taken you "under the hood" of the WebTV Internet terminal and provided an overview of the WebTV Network. This month I'd like to tell you a bit about the company, WebTV Networks -- not just about the great achievements that I've already chronicled, but more of a look at the people, places, and events that shape what is delivered to you every day.

Most days, my job keeps me in my office, but this weekend the company sent me to Laguna Niguel, California to speak at the Spotlight conference. This is a conference where the movers and shakers in the technology world get together to debate the future of technologies like the Internet. This break from the office has given me the opportunity to step back and acknowledge some of the interesting stories unfolding at WebTV Networks. Let me share a few with you:

Our corporate headquarters are located in downtown Palo Alto, California, which is about forty miles south of San Francisco, adjacent to Stanford University. This is where we base all of our corporate activities, our development, the service operation centers for the WebTV Network and where much of our Customer Care group is located.

As we've grown and expanded our operations, it's been a challenge to keep everyone together in what is actually a picturesque college town. As you might imagine, there aren't a lot of large office buildings here. In fact, our first office was an old BMW dealership! When we moved into the building, it still felt very much like a garage. For example, there still were unmistakeable marks where there used to be car repair lifts. On the bright side, employees could literally open a very large roll-door in the back, drive in and park right next to their cubicles.

Last summer, as we moved closer to going online, we needed the original garage space just to operate the WebTV Network. We carved out a large space in the back for Customer Care. What was once a cavernous space has become a room filled with people helping you on the phone and via e-mail every day. They've turned a garage into a fast-paced center of activity, filled with Customer Care representatives talking continuously to customers on the phone, typing away at the keyboard, and occasionally consulting with each other when a customer has a real "stumper". To add to this crazy environment, our Director of Customer Care walks around supervising with an energetic and noisy parrot named Pearl perched on her shoulder. If you ever call WebTV Networks and hear a lot of squawking in the background, it's a safe bet that it's Pearl.

This garage space is also home to our Service Operations Center. These are the folks that work on your behalf to monitor the service and track down problems with the WebTV Network, within our servers, our modem banks, and across the Internet. You may not realize it, but the Internet has minor breakdowns all the time and occasionally has major breakdowns too. For example, just a few weeks ago one of the companies responsible for keeping track of domain names (the names that show up after the "@" sign in mail and include the ".com" suffix on web pages) had a breakdown and computers across the country started forgetting where other computers were. The folks from our Service Operation Center (SOC) team were able to minimize this problem for people using the WebTV Network by quickly detecting it and working to solve it.

SOC's counterparts are the Network Systems group (NSG). Just as SOC is responsible for detecting and investigating problems when they occur, NSG is responsible for analyzing and resolving the tough problems with the service, as well as ensuring that it always provides everything you need and expect. If you read last month's column, you know that the WebTV Network is a very sophisticated system, and managing it is complicated by the fact that we're upgrading it constantly to support more people and to add the new features you ask for. Imagine Disneyland, only with a completely new ride every single week. NSG has the advantage of having anticipated much of this growth, and they have a great working relationship with the team that develops the features. Together, NSG and SOC work really hard to ensure that you never have to worry about the quality of the WebTV Network.

Our first WebTV Networks building is home to one of our two data centers. We originally expected to house the entire network service in this building. But as the number of customers grew quickly we realized that there just wasn't going to be enough space. There is a second, larger data center in another building in downtown Palo Alto. Between the two buildings we have more than 100 computers operating the network, along with numerous modems, routers, T1 lines, T3 lines, RAID drives, databases, and all the other equipment necessary to operate the network. Each machine is located in a rack of equipment that is bolted to the floor and to the ceiling. This rack is raised off of the ground so that it's safe if there is a flood or leak.

We also have a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) and a diesel generator for each building. The UPS will power on instantly if the building loses power for any reason. At that point we fire up the generators and run the network completely off of diesel fuel. I know when this happens because I can look out the window of my office and see our VP of Network Operations walking around Palo Alto with a cellular phone attached to his ear, personally verifying that each piece of the network is working and that (most importantly) we have enough fuel for the generators! He even remembered that we needed parking permits for the generators. Each is the size of a pickup truck! Perhaps at some point in the distant past, one of his generators was towed away.

In addition to all of the people who help to operate the WebTV Network, we also have incredibly great product and service development teams at WebTV Networks -- the very best in all of Silicon Valley. Next month I'm going to tell you all about just how great and how dedicated these folks are.

Odds and Ends
I've had a ton of e-mail asking me how to create fancy signatures for e-mail, so that you can put graphics and sounds into your mail. To do this well you'll need to learn how to use HTML. But I'll give you a hint to get you started. If you type the following in your singature:

<HTML>

<A HREF="http://www.webtv.net/">

Click on this to go to WebTV Networks

</A>

</HTML>

Then you can put a link from your mail to the WebTV Networks information page. If you replace the "http..." part with a different web address then you can change where the link points. Good luck, and remember that many people on the Internet do not have mail programs as sophisticated as WebTV Networks, and so they may not be able to see all of the features in all their glory.

Finally, I very much appreciate the e-mail you send me. Just as WebTV Networks gets a lot of benefit from feedback in improving the network, so too it helps me to write the column when I know what you like and dislike about it. I received what I think is my favorite piece of e-mail last month. After reading it I think you'll see why:

We really think this is one of your best articles yet -- so insightful and full of just good commonsense ideas, that are so hard to come by these days. Keep up the good work. We're already looking forward to next month's edition.

Love, Mom and Dad

I'll be in touch next month. Please keep the mail coming.

Phil Goldman
Laguna Niguel, California