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Pieper’s long career includes stints at Germany’s Software AG, AT&T’s Unix Systems, Tandem Computers and Philips.
He also made a few successful investments, including Veritas, now one of the world’s largest software firms, SeeBeyond, which had a succesful IPO last year in the U.S., and LightStream and Globeset, which were sold to larger companies for a total of $151 million.
These days he is European managing director of the Favonius venture fund, professor of computer science and business at the Netherlands’ University of Twente and creator of an audacious plan to equip 10 million vehicles in the Netherlands with wireless tracking devices by 2006.
The project, called MobiMiles, would revamp the way up to $6 billion in road and vehicle taxes are collected. Pieper hopes Mobimiles will also provide such in-car wireless services as maps, directory information and hotel and restaurant bookings.
As chairman of Connekt, a Dutch organization of government agencies and industry players seeking to redefine the country’s roads and telecom services, Pieper hopes to get major European manufacturers to join the drive for intelligent transport systems in Europe.
The Vision Thing: "When you calculate how many cars there are in Europe, you realize what a huge revenue and profit opportunity the service aspect of this represents for telecoms."
Forward Spin: It will probably take until 2006 for cheap, sophisticated in-car data devices to become a mass phenomenon. Pieper is pushing Germany and France to follow the Netherlands’ lead.
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