Corbis Shuffles Its Top Executives -- Computer-Art Firm To Promote 2 Vps As Chief Steps Down

The chief executive of Corbis, the Bill Gates-owned company that is creating computerized artwork, is stepping down at the same time the company is delaying a highly touted CD-ROM about Ansel Adams.

Doug Rowan, chief executive and president of the Bellevue-based company for three years, said he chose to step down because he wanted more time for himself and his family. Rowan, 58, will leave his position at the end of the month and stay on as a consultant for 18 months.

Vice presidents Steve Davis and Tony Rojas have been named co-presidents. Davis, 39, will oversee the company's product development, sales and marketing. Rojas, 33, will handle operations and acquisitions.

Corbis has put off the only CD-ROM project it was producing this year, a biography of the famous photographer Ansel Adams. The company will pursue its main business, selling images online to publishers and graphic artists.

The moves raise questions about the direction and future for "the other company" owned by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates. Founded in 1989 as Interactive Home Systems, Corbis has gone through a few incarnations, each with a separate management team, and still has not made a profit.

Davis and Rojas said Gates told them he wants the company to continue building its archive of photos and fine-art images on computer, but he emphasized he wants more focus on finding customers for the online images.

"We need to make key strategic decisions: which markets to go after, what investments to make to go after those, and the strategies to use to accomplish those things," Davis said.

The company initially was formed to create "digital," or computerized, artwork for Gates to hang in his Medina waterfront mansion and to explore selling similar artwork to consumers.

In recent years, Corbis has become known for high-quality, PBS-documentary-style CD-ROMs covering famous people such as Leonardo da Vinci and Franklin Roosevelt and topics including volcanoes and the atomic bomb.

Corbis executives have said they made CD-ROMs to build their reputation, not necessarily to make a huge profit. But they, as others, have suffered from a glut in the CD-ROM market and a lack of demand, losing more money than expected on their CD-ROMs. Rowan said four of the company's six products have lost money and two just broke even.

Davis and Rojas blamed the market problems for the delay of the Adams project, saying they chose to wait a year and see whether it made sense to produce the product on CD-ROM or online.

Bill Turnage, head trustee for Adams' estate, said the project was put off more because of the ill health of a key producer. He said Corbis wanted to proceed because it had invested several months' work on the project, but Turnage insisted on waiting for the producer to return.

Although the financial future of Corbis remains uncertain, Davis and Rojas insist the company is moving ahead with the full support of Gates.

Some contract workers have said they were let go late last year. Other key employees, including the marketing director, have left in recent months. But employment is growing - from 260 a year ago to about 300 today.

And the company in March unveiled its online archive to the public through a Web site called Corbis View. Computer users can use that site (www.corbisview.com) to view and select images before ordering them. Davis said the division that sells images online to publishers is approaching profitability "very quickly."

Meanwhile, some of the company's CD-ROM producers have shifted to online jobs as well, producing Web sites with partners, such as a recent site on Thomas Jefferson that complemented a PBS documentary. This market's future is a lot less certain, Davis and Rojas acknowledged.

"Throughout (the company's) changes. . . Bill's vision surprisingly hasn't changed much at all," Davis said. The overriding idea, he said, is for Corbis to "be the place for pictures in the 21st century."