The product was developed by NetDynamics, a Silicon Valley start-up company founded in 1995 by Zack Rinat and Ofer Ben-Shachar.
Unlike other early application server competitors, NetDynamics chose Java as the development language for the platform.
As Java became the dominant development language for web-based applications, NetDynamics experienced significant revenue growth in 1997 and 1998.
By mid-1998, a new competitor, WebLogic, Inc., released a Java application server that was compliant with JDBC and another emerging standard, JavaBeans.
The explosive growth of the application server business caught the attention of larger information technology companies.