This is a partial transcript from Your World with Neil Cavuto, January 22, 2003, that was edited for clarity. Click here for complete access to all of Neil Cavuto's CEO interviews.
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NEIL CAVUTO, HOST: Ha-ha Bill Gates. Someone stood up to you and finally won. No courts. No lawyers. No settlements. Just a cheaper product and somehow the right pitch to win over the mayor of one of the nation's biggest cities, Houston. That someone is my next guest. His name is Ray Davis. His company is SimDesk. And his victory, while small in the scheme of things, probably has Bill Gates and company very worried. Mr. Davis joins us right now.
Mr. Davis, thanks for coming.
RAY DAVIS, FOUNDER, SIMDESK: Thank you for having me.
CAVUTO: No one expected this, Microsoft rules the roost and you kind of snuck in this victory when no one expected it, what did you do?
DAVIS: We basically just did what we do. We are a bunch of computer guys, wrote some software, and brought it into the city.
CAVUTO: But it is Microsoft software that dominates the world, everybody thought were you kooky to even consider battling them even in your market. What made you say otherwise?
DAVIS: It is really not the office product or the word processor that we were trying to bring into the city, it is basically a server software that we were trying to invent. The server software is something that we could connect 20 million users to. That is something that is not available today. When you think of connecting the four largest cities, every man, woman, and child to a single server, that is the technology that we have developed, not necessarily a word processor or a spreadsheet, but the ability to connect those people all to one server the size of a refrigerator.
CAVUTO: All right. You are being technical here. And you know your stuff well. But Microsoft clearly was alarmed by what you were doing. They were all but threatening Houston, and more or less saying, look, it is our gig here, you do not want to rain on this parade, I am vastly trivializing this. But how did you convince people that were you up to something?
DAVIS: It was pretty easy. Once we had developed the technology, we brought it in to the mayor of Houston. And he is a visionary. He saw the technology. He wanted to bring the technology to the citizens of Houston. And it was a short step from there to be able to start the pilot program.
CAVUTO: So when the mayor saw what you had to offer he knew he was going to get a lot of beef from Microsoft. Did he just say, oh, the hell with it, I don't care, I like what you are doing?
DAVIS: I don't know that he really thought about the beef from Microsoft, I think he thought about bringing the technology to all people. Mayor Brown has a background in supporting the library system. He worked in the libraries as a child, so his biggest impetus was to bring technology to those people. And putting this technology into libraries was his number one concern.
CAVUTO: Mr. Davis, thank you very much, congratulations, no one saw this coming.
DAVIS: Thank you.
CAVUTO: Ray Davis, the SimDesk founder out of Houston, Texas.
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