Command Information, a Herndon-based start-up firm focused on the next-generation Internet protocol, opens a new training center Wednesday to teach commercial and government clients IPv6 — the newest version of the rules that link systems across the Internet.
“The Internet that we all know and love and use everyday was designed from a technical level in the 1970s,” said Tom Patterson, founder and CEO of Command Information. “And it’s the same Internet we’ve been using ever since.”
IPv6 — which, despite its name, is only the second version of the structure underlying the World Wide Web — was designed in the mid-1990s. It is a faster, flashier version of today’s Internet protocol, known as IPv4. IPv6 is more efficient and will connect users to more than just their computer.
For example, IPv6 will eventually allow users to sync up all their electronic devices, meaning you might pick up your voicemails from your television and watch your favorite television show on your cell phone.
IPv6 “will be an Internet for your whole life, not just your computer,” Patterson said.
Command Information, which launched last year with $20 million from venture capital powerhouses The Carlyle Group and Novak Biddle Venture Partners, helps government and commercial clients integrate the new Internet infrastructure into their existing systems. The federal government has been mandated to switch all government systems to the IPv6 version by June 2008, and, as a result, Command Information has grown rapidly.
“The government is the singlebiggest IT buyer in the world,” Patterson said. “So when they buy into a new technology … [commercial firms] had to get on the bandwagon.”
Command has grown to 100 employees since last year and expects to be at 400 by 2007. Command also opened satelliteoffices in Seattle and London.
The company’s training center is the first of its kind in the U.S. Analysts predict that as IPv6 becomes more prevalent, Command will have competition.
“Everybody agrees that at some point virtually everyone will make the switch from IPv4 to IPv6, so we’re going to see a growing need for companies to know how to use IPv6,” said Joe Laszlo, a senior broadband analyst for New York-based JupiterResearch. “Companies that are in the market to navigate the transition should have success.”
