It's not quite point-and-click, but technology shopping is getting almost that easy on the Internet.
A few years ago research and development in the oil industry started to lose some of its luster. With commodity prices depressed, major oil companies no longer had the luxury of pouring millions of dollars into their high-tech research labs, with the result that most of the labs were closed or scaled back. The burden of research funding was shifted in large part to service companies, which often were forced to abandon pure research in favor of products that could be commercialized quickly.
Then the oil industry had an epiphany. What if, instead of being mere purchasers of technology, oil companies could somehow make some money off of their remaining bright ideas? What if, instead of keeping their technology secrets closely guarded, they could somehow share them with their competitors while maintaining a competitive advantage?
Interesting thoughts, these. But as with any new idea, taking these thoughts from conference topics to reality hasn't been easy. How does a company go about finding its intellectual capital, valuing it, marketing it and reaping some benefit from it?
A happy marriage of this mind-set and evolving Internet technology holds tremendous promise. Many Web sites offer networking possibilities for those who have technology and those who need it, and one, www.yet2.com, already boasts several successful connections that might never have been made without the tremendous networking ability the World Wide Web provides.
The site was the result of corporate frustration over the difficulty in marketing technology to potential buyers. At DuPont, Ben du Pont was charged with finding new applications for Lycra. "He was growing very frustrated with the inability to reach out beyond the tight circle of friends that DuPont has," said Conrad Langenhagen, vice president of finance and strategy for www.yet2.com. "DuPont typically interacts with the same types of companies on an ongoing basis, so he'd pretty much exhausted that contact base."
Over at Polaroid, meanwhile, Chris De Bleser, now the chief executive officer of www.yet2.com, was having the same problem moving beyond his typical contacts to examine market opportunities for Polaroid in digital imaging. A mutual friend "heard their pain," Langenhagen said, and brought the two together.
The site was started in June 1999 with the idea of opening up new avenues for those who have technology and those who need it. The availability of the Internet enables these companies, organizations and individuals to cross several boundaries. One of these is a boundary of application. Most people can think of at least one technology that was intended for one purpose but eventually was applied in a new way, opening opportunities well beyond the original reason for its inception. But until now, those types of new applications have been rather serendipitous in nature. An Internet site devoted to marketing technology offerings and technology needs can help bridge these application gaps much more quickly and efficiently.
Additionally, the site helps connect groups that ordinarily wouldn't be talking to each other. It can be virtually impossible for a small start-up company to gain audience with a multinational corporation, even if there are obvious technological synergies to be had. But the Web site brings together the point people from each of these organizations and provides an environment for the negotiations to take place.
Thirdly, the site bridges geographical boundaries. "Today it's pretty difficult for a Malaysian company in the textile industry to get in touch with a US aerospace company," Langenhagen said. "But www.yet2.com makes those kinds of connections possible."
One example that crossed most of these boundaries involved Boeing and a small home appliance company called Touchbridge. Touchbridge was developing appliances that rely on a touch screen, but its researchers were discovering that fingers touching screens in certain home environments such as the kitchen tend to have things on them that smudge the screen. They went in search of a coating that would repel fingerprints, but they couldn't find the technology.
After reading an article about www.yet2.com, Touchbridge researchers visited the site. Within 30 minutes they discovered Boeing owned a technology that didn't repel fingerprints but made them invisible. Originally developed by McDonnell Douglas before that company's merger with Boeing, the coating was used in fighter aircraft. The two companies struck a deal.
"Now this small home appliances company has an audience across the table from one of the largest companies in the world," Langenhagen said. "With the exception of the geographic component, it has everything you'd want in a licensing transaction."
The site earns its keep in a number of ways - by taking a cut of the transaction amount, by charging membership fees for buyers and sellers on its site, and by aiding its members with licensing issues. This last accounts for much of the site's revenue, Langenhagen said, because it's an area that's still new to many technology developers.
"If we'd tried to do this 3 years ago, I think we would have failed," he said. "Three years ago companies weren't facing the types of pressures they're facing today. Now they have more pressure to figure out innovative ways to grow shareholder value, and now the awareness is very high in terms of intellectual property being one of the last bastions of untapped corporate value."
While the site hosts technologies from myriad disciplines, several are pertinent to the oil and gas industry. For instance, one technology uses wireless data telemetry to transmit data from a drill bit to the surface. Another provides a means to maximizing revenue channels by reducing communications overhead in satellite communications. Yet another uses optical technology to wirelessly monitor drilling operations in shallow exploration wells.
Sites like www.yet2.com promise to take technology transfer to a new level. "It's a tremendous opportunity for companies to become more efficient in their R&D efforts and for those companies that have technology to realize almost direct profitability by licensing it out to new and different users," Langenhagen said.