Corporate websites grew from a few pages to thousands, and suddenly dozens of people needed to edit them without breaking anything. Interwoven built software that let them work together safely. Its answer was a product called TeamSite. When it filed to go public in the fall of 1999, every large company had the same problem. Content management became one of the key software categories of the era.

Code Discipline for Web Pages

Peng Ong founded Interwoven in 1995. He bet that websites needed the same workflow software teams used for code: versions, reviews, approvals and controlled releases. TeamSite let writers, designers and developers work side by side and publish safely, weaving many contributions into one site. It became a standard choice for big corporate websites and drew customers in media, finance and technology.

Law Firms, Then Autonomy

Interwoven priced at $17 a share in October 1999 and flew high during the boom. It survived the crash and merged with iManage in 2003. That merger led it to a strong niche: document management for law firms and professional services companies. In 2009 the British software company Autonomy bought Interwoven for about $775 million. Its software lived on inside Autonomy's products.

Cover: Women weaving on a loom, Katsushika Hokusai. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for women weaving on a loom (many threads, one fabric).