OSU Spin-Off Company Acquired by Seattle Technology Firm

Story Posted: Fri, Jul 7, 2006

By Gregg Kleiner, 541-737-9684
Source: Ron Adams, 541-737-3101
Pi Corporation Contact: Jody Peake 503-802-4410

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A software company launched by two Oregon State University computer science professors who were determined to make computer desktops “smarter” for users working on multiple projects has been acquired by Seattle-based Pi Corporation for an undisclosed amount.

Smart Desktop, Inc. was started at OSU by professors Tom Dietterich and Jon Herlocker, who teamed up three years ago to launch the online music recommendation company Musicstrands.com, which now has offices in Corvallis and Barcelona, Spain.

Smart Desktop will be based in Seattle where it will commercialize the results of the TaskTracer research project of the Intelligent Information Systems Laboratory at the OSU College of Engineering. Smart Desktop and Pi will operate as separate brands, and Smart Desktop will create new products that increase the productivity of information workers.

The OSU research group, directed by Dietterich and Herlocker, developed new technology that uses machine intelligence to automatically classify, sort and organize information for people by observing and learning from their interactions with their personal computers.

“Everyone knows how frustrating it can be when you’re trying to locate files on your computer or network,” Herlocker said. “Our software automatically organizes your information in a way that is more natural for a person rather than a computer – learning what files, email messages, contacts and other information go with which projects. So when you need to switch to a different project, you can instantly bring up all that information associated with the project. This is going to revolutionize the way people and computers interact.”

Herlocker, who will serve as the vice president of engineering at Smart Desktop, said the company has already hired one OSU computer science graduate, and hopes to hire more in the coming months. Dietterich will be Chief Scientist at Smart Desktop, Inc.

“This is an impressive example of how university research ultimately creates new companies and new jobs,” said Ron Adams, OSU dean of engineering. “Which is why it’s so critical for states to invest in higher education. For every state dollar invested in universities, five dollars is returned to a state’s economy. I’m very proud of Jon Herlocker and Tom Dietterich, for their innovation, creativity and their understanding of entrepreneurship. Their research is directly impacting economic development in a powerful way.”

Pi Corporation is headquartered I Seattle and was founded two years ago by Paul Maritz, a former Microsoft executive, and Warburg-Pincus of New York, the world’s largest venture capital and investment banking firm. The company creates innovative online services that make it easy for individuals to gather information, organize it, share it instantly and securely, and access it from any web-based device.

Check out University news and events, and calendars.