In 1995, De Brouwer reinvested the money gained from his publishing venture into PING, a spinoff of Eunet, the commercial company around the former EUUG, European Unix Users Group. In April 1998, Eunet acquired PING before being sold to Qwest Communications International for 154,400,000$ in stock.

In 2001, Jobscape, De Brouwer’s electronic employment site was bought by Stepstone before going public on both the London Stock Exchangeand the Oslo Bors.