History of miva

Greetings Richard.

I was one of the original authors of htmlscript along
with some friends. That was in 1995. The company
htmlscript Corporation was formed in mid 1996.
Jon Burchmore came aboard in 1997 and single
handedly re-wrote the engine to uniquely support
both the old htmlscript syntax and the new Miva
Script syntax. Jon is still with the company
and is now our VP of Development.

Derek Finley, now our VP of Marketing, has been
with the company since the beginning.

In 1998 we renamed the company to Miva Corporation
and in late 1998 we came out with the first version
of Miva Merchant. At that point the company was
a handful of people. I think about five or so.
We didn't start making money until we had Miva
Merchant -- there is not alot of money in
scripting engines.

The name Miva is derived from the hieroglyphic
name for cat -- the picture of a milk basin followed
by the picture of a bird and pronounced Me Waa.
My friend Boris kept on pronouncing it Miva, so
a new company name was born. Choosing a cat was
random and was simply the first word in a book
on hieroglyphics that I had picked up because
it looked cool. I also have a cat which, as
I recall, was another reason and finally it
made sense because of electronic (cat)alog --
a tie in to e-commerce.

In 1999 the company grew very rapidly on the success
of Miva Merchant. I think we had about 22 or so
people by the end of 1999. We raised about three
and a half million dollars in 2000 mainly from
two Japanese corporations. The fact that it
was Japanese money is incidental -- there is
no other connection with the Japanese.

In 2002 we finally delivered on the Miva Script
Compiler. It took longer to develop than
we had thought. The htmlscript syntax and
macros were dropped from the engine.

In September 2003, at the Miva Conference,
we announced that we were selling the
company to FindWhat.Com (NASDAQ:FWHT) in
a (approx) $8mm transaction. I had actually
been working on the deal since April of
that year. On 1 January 2004 the deal
closed and I remain on as General Manager.

This year we will be announcing Miva Merchant 5
and Miva Empresa/Mia 5. General information
will be out in the next few weeks. Alot
of information will be available at the fifth
annual Miva conference. I hope to see all
of you at the conference.


- Joe Austin


-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Grevers [mailto:lists@dramatic.co.nz]
Sent: Saturday, June 26, 2004 4:08 AM
To: miva-users@miva.com
Subject: [meu] History of miva

Is there a miva timeline available anywhere? The current company info page
isn't strong on info, and Wikipedia is lacking an article on the the
language and company, something I thought I'd put to rights.

Things I'd like to clarify:
Who first wrote HTMLscript and when?
When did it become mivascript? Was that when Joe got involved?
When was Merchant first launched?
I don't think we'd better publish the Miva Hotel, Bratislava, version :-)

--
Richard Grevers
Between two evils always pick the one you haven't tried

YAHOO!!!!!!!

Thanks Joe - great review - I never really knew where Miva came from!

And Version5 - EXCELLENT!!!

Bill


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-miva-users@miva.com [mailto:owner-miva-users@miva.com]On
Behalf Of Austin, Joe
Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 2004 4:44 PM
To: miva-users@miva.com
Subject: RE: [meu] History of miva




Greetings Richard.

I was one of the original authors of htmlscript along
with some friends. That was in 1995. The company
htmlscript Corporation was formed in mid 1996.
Jon Burchmore came aboard in 1997 and single
handedly re-wrote the engine to uniquely support
both the old htmlscript syntax and the new Miva
Script syntax. Jon is still with the company
and is now our VP of Development.

Derek Finley, now our VP of Marketing, has been
with the company since the beginning.

In 1998 we renamed the company to Miva Corporation
and in late 1998 we came out with the first version
of Miva Merchant. At that point the company was
a handful of people. I think about five or so.
We didn't start making money until we had Miva
Merchant -- there is not alot of money in
scripting engines.

The name Miva is derived from the hieroglyphic
name for cat -- the picture of a milk basin followed
by the picture of a bird and pronounced Me Waa.
My friend Boris kept on pronouncing it Miva, so
a new company name was born. Choosing a cat was
random and was simply the first word in a book
on hieroglyphics that I had picked up because
it looked cool. I also have a cat which, as
I recall, was another reason and finally it
made sense because of electronic (cat)alog --
a tie in to e-commerce.

In 1999 the company grew very rapidly on the success
of Miva Merchant. I think we had about 22 or so
people by the end of 1999. We raised about three
and a half million dollars in 2000 mainly from
two Japanese corporations. The fact that it
was Japanese money is incidental -- there is
no other connection with the Japanese.

In 2002 we finally delivered on the Miva Script
Compiler. It took longer to develop than
we had thought. The htmlscript syntax and
macros were dropped from the engine.

In September 2003, at the Miva Conference,
we announced that we were selling the
company to FindWhat.Com (NASDAQ:FWHT) in
a (approx) $8mm transaction. I had actually
been working on the deal since April of
that year. On 1 January 2004 the deal
closed and I remain on as General Manager.

This year we will be announcing Miva Merchant 5
and Miva Empresa/Mia 5. General information
will be out in the next few weeks. Alot
of information will be available at the fifth
annual Miva conference. I hope to see all
of you at the conference.


- Joe Austin


-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Grevers [mailto:lists@dramatic.co.nz]
Sent: Saturday, June 26, 2004 4:08 AM
To: miva-users@miva.com
Subject: [meu] History of miva

Is there a miva timeline available anywhere? The current company info page
isn't strong on info, and Wikipedia is lacking an article on the the
language and company, something I thought I'd put to rights.

Things I'd like to clarify:
Who first wrote HTMLscript and when?
When did it become mivascript? Was that when Joe got involved?
When was Merchant first launched?
I don't think we'd better publish the Miva Hotel, Bratislava, version :-)

--
Richard Grevers
Between two evils always pick the one you haven't tried

On Tue, 29 Jun 2004 13:43:46 -0700, Austin, Joe <jaustin@miva.com> gave
utterance to the following:

Thanks Joe - I'll write an article when I get time - hopefully at the
weekend, and will publish a link here. Being wikipedia, you are welcome to
correct any errors of fact that I make. (They do prefer, however, that
articles about people and companies are not initially written by the
subject themselves)

--
Richard Grevers
Between two evils always pick the one you haven't tried

On Wed, 30 Jun 2004 16:33:06 +1200, Richard Grevers <lists@dramatic.co.nz>
gave utterance to the following:

> On Tue, 29 Jun 2004 13:43:46 -0700, Austin, Joe <jaustin@miva.com> gave
> utterance to the following:
>
> Thanks Joe - I'll write an article when I get time - hopefully at the
> weekend, and will publish a link here. Being wikipedia, you are welcome
> to correct any errors of fact that I make. (They do prefer, however,
> that articles about people and companies are not initially written by
> the subject themselves)
>
It's at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MivaScr...mming_language

Feel free to embellish it folks, just remember the "Neutral Point of view"
rule.
And we could use an article on Merchant from someone who actually works
with it. Just click the red link in the mivascript article and you'll be
able to start it.

--
Richard Grevers
Between two evils always pick the one you haven't tried