More than words – The Voice of There

BIG CHANGES AT THERE CORPORATE

By NigelBlackthorne

There Inc. has become (Forterra Systems Inc. http://www.forterrainc.com/) in their continuing effort to refocus corporate marketing toward the deep pocket budgets of the US Defense and Homeland Security Departments. The name change was announced concurrently with the news that an additional $14 million dollars in venture capital was acquired, principally from Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP). (JVP http://www.jvpvc.com/) is an Israeli based venture capital company that specializes in technology based, start up companies.

Robert Gehorsam was announced as the new CEO of Forterra, assuming the position from interim CEO Steve Victorino who will now assume the position of President and COO. Gehorsam was appointed to the board of directors along with Allon Bloch of JVP. Since last year, Gehorsam as Vice President for Strategic Initiatives, spearheaded the efforts of There Inc. to secure contracts with the government for Forterra’s virtual world platform. It was announced earlier this year that a multimillion dollar contract with the US Army was obtained for creating a virtual world training environment. The Army’s training platform is supposed to be ready for use in September. (Here is a link to a demonstration video http://www.forterrainc.com/demo_mil.html)

Three months ago There Inc.’s Michael Wilson announced a fundamental change in their corporate priorities, away from the consumer oriented There virtual world and toward the marketing of the There platform to outside entities. Many viewed this announcement as the beginning of the end of There as a consumer service but later it was announced that along with the changing corporate priorities, There would continue to be supported but with a diminished support staff. Days before the announcement of the acquisition of new capital it was announced that the staff of There would be increased.

With a new client release, increased staff and assurances that Forterra has no plans to pull the plug on There, the future of There seems to be more secure for the time being. Whether There will benefit from technology advances developed for the Army platform remains to be seen.