VCs form Command Information to bring IPv6 to government agencies

The Washington Post reports that Carlyle Venture Partners and Novak Biddle Venture Partners have formed a new company, Command Information, to provide services to companies and government agencies adopting Internet Protocol Version 6.

Though Asia has been an eager and early user of the system, which has been available for years, the United States has been slower to adopt the technology.

But Carlyle Venture and Novak Biddle are betting that spending will explode as competitive pressures mount and government pushes to move agencies onto the new system by 2008 -- a situation reminiscent of the rush to install Y2K software in the late 1990s or the rapid proliferation of Internet companies during that decade.

"The idea has actually been percolating for 10 years," Patterson said yesterday. "But I did not factor in how long it takes for a new standard like this to evolve."

The amount companies will spend to convert and develop new systems, however, is difficult to determine, Patterson said.

"We're using the McDonald's hamburger number: billions and billions," he said. "But it's difficult to estimate in reality . . . and a lot of this stuff is not going to happen over night. But it will happen."