Big companies in 2000 ran dozens of programs that could not talk to each other: billing, inventory, ordering, the new website. The company that became SeeBeyond, then called Software Technologies Corporation, had spent a decade writing the connections. Its e*Gate engine moved data between those programs inside a company and out to suppliers and partners. Customers included Hewlett-Packard, J.P. Morgan, Nike, Northern Trust, PETsMART and UBS. It filed from Monrovia, California.

A Decade Before the Boom

James T. Demetriades founded the company in California in December 1989 as STDC Corporation. It became Software Technologies Corporation in June 1992. Then e-business arrived, and every company needed its old systems linked to the web and to trading partners. STC wrapped e*Gate into a suite called e*Xchange, built to link systems with little custom programming. After the offering, Demetriades owned about 44.9 percent of the stock.

Sun Buys the Pipes

STC sold 4 million shares at $12 in April 2000, raising $48 million, and listed on Nasdaq as STCS. The underwriters held an option on 600,000 more shares. The company later renamed itself SeeBeyond Technology Corporation. On June 27, 2005, Sun Microsystems agreed to buy SeeBeyond for $4.25 a share in cash. The deal closed that August, and SeeBeyond's software became part of Sun's product line.

Cover: Looking out to Sea from the Benten Shrine at Susaki in Fukagawa (Fukagawa Susaki Benten yori kaijo o nozomu), from the series "Eastern Capital (Toto)", Shotei Hokuju. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for looking out to sea from a shrine (seeing beyond).