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Start-Up Creates Electronic Personal Assistant

Posted on: Sunday, 19 June 2005, 18:00 CDT

Jun. 20--A Silicon Valley start-up has created an electronic personal assistant to help professionals book airplane tickets, set up Web conferences -- even make an appointment with the plumber.

The Web-based software, which is marketed to companies, provides people with a single portal to an array of services.

"This is the Amazon or the eBay of services," said Patrick Grady, founder of Rearden Commerce in San Mateo.

Among those companies incorporating their offerings into Rearden's Employee Business Services platform are DHL, Federal Express, WebEx, airline reservation system Sabre and Northstar Travel Media, a global hotel reservation center. Rearden's corporate clients have access to 530 air carriers, 80,000 hotel properties and 50,000 restaurants.

Actually, it's a lot more than that. The system can synchronize services to a person's calendar and automatically communicate with clients through e-mail about upcoming meetings, Web conference appointments or even invitations to a baseball game. Services are being added to enable the system to go out and buy the baseball tickets online once the invitees have sent in their RSVPs.

"I think it's a cool idea," said AMR Research analyst Bruce Richardson. "Linking all of those things and making it seamless -- if they can pull that off, they will have a really unique service."

Rearden, which has a healthy head start in this e-service model, could possibly face competition from Google or another search engine, Richardson said. "Google is doing maps and all of that stuff," he said. "It's the next level of services."

Rearden's technical advisory board, in fact, includes Adam Bosworth, Google's vice president of engineering; Chuck Geiger, former vice president of engineering for eBay and PayPal; and Terry Jones, founder of Travelocity.

Geiger said he's impressed with the concept and the technology. "It serves as both a service-based technology for companies but also a platform" on which companies and third parties can build additional services, he said. That could allow for an eBay-like ecosystem to evolve around the company, Geiger added.

The goal of Rearden is to make the process of using an Internet service as easy as ordering a book online. Often, people must use numerous Web sites to order a Web or audio conference, ship a package and make a flight reservation. "You have 15 different passwords and none of them are integrated," Grady said.

Rearden, which has $42 million in venture backing, including $3 million from Grady, a former VC, has deployed recent innovations in software that allow for seamless integration of different applications. The platform also takes advantage of the ability of people to communicate across numerous devices, from desktops to handheld devices.

So far, Rearden has lined up 10 corporate clients, including Cingular Wireless, Motorola and Whirlpool. Corporations pay one-time charges of $250,000 to $1 million, plus monthly fees based on how many employees use the system. Rearden also expects to garner fees from businesses such as ticket agencies every time a ticket is purchased. The Web-based platform is marketed only at corporate clients, whose ranks of keyboard pushers could use it for business as well as their own personal assistance.

Additionally, the platform enables company executives to easily change such policies as preferred airlines for business travel or shipping companies for sending overnight packages. Instead of sending out e-mails to employees, who often don't bother to read them, the executives can simply change the portal's procedures to redirect users.

Rearden's market is global, Grady said. "We live in a services economy. We consume services more frequently than anything in the world. It's 70 percent of U.S. GDP and 60 percent of world GDP."

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Source: San Jose Mercury News

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