Come one, come all to Nexagent?
- Article 20 of 25
- Infoconomist, July 2002
Nexagent's IP service management system promises much, but needs a critical mass of customers before it will work.
Like Bill Gates and Michael Dell, Charles Muirhead was a university drop-out. Unlike them, he is already on his fourth start-up.
His latest is called Nexagent, a company specialising in service level assurance (SLA) software. The business proposition is simple. Major multinationals rely heavily on their global networks, yet have no choice but to put them together with a patchwork of contracts with different operators, each using different systems for data transfer and offering different SLAs.
Even more frustrating is finding out where the problem is - and who's responsible - when traffic suddenly slows to a crawl.
Founded in July 2000, Muirhead's Nexagent offers a collaborative platform for telecommunications companies, together with hardware for monitoring performance and connecting different networks together.
The aim of Nexagent's Peering Point technology is two-fold. First, it will enable telecoms companies to put together chains of Internet service providers (ISPs) operating around the world. Second, the platform can monitor each leg of the path that network traffic takes to ensure that each ISP in the chain is abiding by the SLA.
The Nexagent Peering Point also manages the interface between networks, so that if one uses asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) and the other uses the alternate frame relay technology, for example, a connection will still be possible.
After two years in 'stealth mode', Muirhead raised funding of $15 million (EU15.6m) in a first round led by Atlas Venture, Benchmark Capital and his own iGabriel organisation.
Although not yet tested in the real world, Muirhead says the technology has passed all potential purchasers' lab tests and a pilot scheme is imminent. But persuading hard-pressed network operators to buy will present a particularly stiff challenge.
Muirhead believes that the extra revenue that it could generate for users means that “as soon as the first few have signed up, the rest will fall like dominoes”. He adds: “We call it the 'no new capital expenditure', zero-brainer solution.”
But it remains to be seen whether Muirhead can make as big a success of Nexagent as he has with London-listed Orchestream, his most notable venture to date.