Many companies talk about convergence, but San Diego’s InterVu is all action. The company’s audio/video compression technology has combined the worldwide availability of the Internet with a uniform standard for distributing information and entertainment in text, audio and video in any combination. CEO Harry Gruber sees this trend continuing, observing that "convergence has already occurred. The only question is the rate at which it continues."
Blue chip customers have flocked to InterVu to access its leading-edge technology. Microsoft, Turner Broadcasting, Excite@Home, NBC and Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising are among the power users who are standardizing their online video services using Interu's streaming video services. They often prefer to outsource their online broadcasting management to InterVu rather than set up their own operations because InterVu provides a scaleable solution ideal for prime time peaks and special events such as concerts and sports championships. Intervu made history last month by enabling the world's first live, interactive fund-raiser for the California presidential primary.
Gruber sees politics as just one of the many areas that can gain from interactive communication on the Internet. For example, InterVu's NetPodium service now enables dozens of investors to participate in financial conferences of public companies. Most U.S. telephone companies have also added the Internet conference call function to their services.
CEO Gruber has a résumé that could only be found in San Diego. Trained as a physician, Gruber interned at UCSD and went on to start three successful biotechnology ventures. When he and cofounder Brian Kenner established InterVu in 1995, the same group of angel investors who had backed his previous ventures raised $10 million to finance InterVu, including Qualcomm cofounders Irwin Jacobs and Andrew Viterbi. Their confidence in the start-up veteran has been richly rewarded, with a return 250 times their original investments. The company has grown from two employees to about 300.
Investors have recognized that InterVu is becoming a leader in a high growth industry, with good chances of achieving senior management's goal of becoming the next AT&T. The company’s initial public offering in late 1997 was priced at $10 a share. Today shares are trading at $135.13. With a market capitalization of $2 billion, InterVu has joined the ranks of San Diego’s business leaders. In addition to growing its own business, InterVu is making strategic investments in San Diego-based ventures such as Seminarsource.com and PacketVideo, which are advancing InterVu's growth as value added resellers.

— Max Donner