Scient was a
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
-based
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
consulting
A consultant (from la, consultare "to deliberate") is a professional (also known as ''expert'', ''specialist'', see variations of meaning below) who provides advice and other purposeful activities in an area of specialization.
Consulting servic ...
company, founded in 1997, that was one of the large American consulting firms during the
dot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet.
Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...
. The company was founded by Eric Greenberg, who had previously founded its competitor,
Viant. Its CEO was Robert Howe, the former head of IBM global consulting. At its height in the fall of 2000, it had quarterly revenues of US$100 million, 1,180 employees and a stock price of US$133. In August 2001, it bought rival company iXL; by then its quarterly revenues were down to US$11 million.
In July 2002, the company filed for bankruptcy and was bought by SBI and Company, which became SBI Group. SBI Group later sold Scient with the other members of
Avenue A/Razorfish
Razorfish, a part of Publicis Groupe, is an interactive agency. Razorfish provides services including web development, media planning and buying, technology and innovation, emerging media, analytics, mobile, advertising, creative, social influ ...
to a company called
aQuantive. aQuantive, in turn, was bought by
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...
in August 2007 and became Microsoft's newly created Advertiser and Publisher Solutions (APS) Group.
On August 9, 2009, Microsoft sold the firm to
Publicis Groupe
Publicis Groupe is a French multinational advertising and public relations company. One of the oldest and largest marketing and communications companies in the world by revenue, it is headquartered in Paris.
After 1945, the little-known Paris ...
for $530M in cash and stock.
At the time of the IPO in May 1999, the management team was headed by Eric Greenberg, Chairman and Founder, and Robert M. Howe, President & Chief Executive Officer.
[{{Cite web , title=Online IPOs for Joe Public - Oct. 2, 1999 , url=https://money.cnn.com/1999/10/02/investing/q_onlineipos/ , access-date=2022-07-20 , website=money.cnn.com]
References
Online companies of the United States
Technology companies established in 1997