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Credant Technologies

Credant Technologies Acquired By Dell After A Decade Of Independent Ruling

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The time is not far when the valuation of data will surpass the value of real currencies. Moreover, the acquisition of more data by a nation will access the net worth of a country. This might seem a little far-fetched right now, but it will arrive soon. With gigantic growth in the sphere of technology, the demand for data for every tiny transaction over the internet, data is crucial! And, anything valuable needs security, right? Irrespective of personal data of an individual or confidential data of a company, it has to be protected. Credant Technologies, a company founded in 2001 served the purpose of providing data security services. Dell announced the acquisition of the company in December 2012. The founders of the company are Bob Heard, Chris Burchett, and Andrew Kahl.

About the Founders

Bob Heard pursued Business and Law and completed his bachelor’s degree in 1974 from Texas Tech University. He stepped into the professional world with IBM where he worked as a Regional Industry Sales Representative. Bob worked there for six long years and joined Information Resources, Inc as Executive Vice President.

Bob had an ample of experiences before co-founding Credant Technologies. Some of them include working as SVP for S2 Systems and Entrust Technologies, working as a General Manager for Sterling Commerce Banking Systems Division, etc. He started working at Dell as an Executive Director but left after seven months and co-founded Credant. Currently, he is the CEO of Credant Technologies and Board Member of eOriginal.

Chris Burchett also went to Texas Tech University and acquired his bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. He went to Southern Methodist University for completing his MS. After completing his BS, we worked at E-Systems as Software System Engineer for four years. While doing his MS, he joined i2 Technologies and worked there for seven years.

He left the company in 2001 after serving as the Director of Product Development. After co-founding Credant, he served as the CTO of the same and then worked for Dell in the security division. Currently, he is the Group Vice President of Blue Yonder.

Andrew has a bachelor’s degree in economics and history from Northern Illinois University and his MBA from Notre Dame University. Before co-founding Credant, he had prior experiences in working for Compaq and i2 Technologies. He left Credant in 2013 and joined NetApp. Andrew is currently serving as the Chief Customer Officer at SailPoint and as a Board Member of MyScript.

History of Credant Technologies

Bob along with Chris and Andrew saw a very big opportunity in the area of computing. When they founded the company, the internet has just started grasping the market. They knew eventually every enterprise will soon need data security as every small activity will depend on the internet.

So, they decided to found Credant Technologies with the prime goal of providing data security services to various companies. The company mainly worked for protecting data and secure it from “leaking”. Credant Technologies started with 110 employees which are pretty impressive for a new company. Moreover, the co-founders of Credant are well-experienced and seemed to have a lot of influence in the business world.

The tools of Credant Technologies had diverse applications, thus serving educational organizations, hospitals, aeronautical industry and well as the financial sector. The company also claimed to produce two million endpoints in these industries. Credant Technologies, since the beginning, has worked for protecting endpoint data and demonstrate compliance. It also worked to reduce costs at the same time.

Investors and Acquisitions

The major investors of Credant Technologies include Crescendo Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Austin Ventures LP, Intel Capital, and Cisco Systems. The company also had a joint partnership with Dell and OEM Record. Credant Technologies, for two successive years (2007 & 2008) became the fastest-growing private security company according to the Inc 500 Survey.

By 2011, over 800 companies, as well as few government sectors, used the product of Credant Technologies. Their tools and software were installed in more than 7 million devices. In 2005, the company was named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year. Within a span of ten years, it made a significant presence in the world of data security.

Dell announced that it will be acquiring Credant in December 2012. The acquisition was made for the sole purpose of strengthening the security system of Dell.

Leonard Bosack : Pioneer of the Commercialization of Routing Technology

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The ousted co-founder of Cisco Systems, who is known for pioneering the widespread commercialization of local area network (LAN) technology, is an American computer scientist, who linked 5,000 computers across a 16-square-mile (41 km2) campus area, at the time when it even connecting the computers of two different buildings was an unheard thing.

Early Life

Bosack was born in 1952, in Pennsylvania. He completed his school education from La Salle College High School in 1969 and joined the Wharton School in the University of Pennsylvania to get a bachelor’s degree. After graduating, Bosack joined DEC as a hardware engineer. But, as he had applied in the Stanford University for higher education, he left his job, to join the university to pursue computer science, as soon he got accepted in the university.

Leonard Bosack
Image Source: therichestimages.com

In 1981, while studying at the Standford University, he was appointed as the support engineer for a project to connect all of Stanford’s mainframes, minis, LISP machines and Altos. At the university, he met his future wife and partner, Sandy Lerner. Lerner was working as the director of computer facilities for the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. The two started dating, and the couple got married in 1980.

Founding Cisco

While working as the support engineer for Standford University, Bosack, along with his wife, started experimenting on the same, secretly at his home using Stanford’s network. The two worked as partners and invented an Advanced Gateway Server; the revised version of the Stanford router built by William Yeager and Andy Bechtolsheim. To commercialise the router, they founded Cisco Systems and received the license for selling the router. The company was named on after the city San Francisco.

The router was able to effectively connect different hardware, like an Apple Macintosh, Unix workstation as well as an IBM mainframe, supporting multiple protocols. According to the legends, the Bosack and Lerner had invented the first such router to connect the computers of two different buildings of Stanford University, that used different networks, so that they could share emails through it.

For the first two years of the company, Bosack operated it from the garage of his house, and the medium of marketing was word of mouth. Despite, he was able to get contracts worth $200,000, only in the first month of starting the company. As the company was growing, Bosack appointed Greg Satz and Richard Troiano, for programming and for sales for the company, respectively.

In the year 1988, venture capitalist Don Valentine of Sequoia Capital invested $2 million in the start-up, and the company focused on the bigger commercial market. In 1990, the company went public, generating $70 million annual revenue. Sequoia Capital, having a share in the company, appointed John Morgridge as the new CEO of the company. The step was taken to increase the company growth. The joining of the new CEO also made Bosack and Lerner quit the company. At the time they left the company, they had two-thirds of the stakes in Cisco, which they sold for about $170 million dollars.

Personal Life

Bosack and Lerner got divorced in 1990. Currently, Bosack is retired and living in his home state of Pennsylvania. For his contribution to the field of computer science, he won the Computer Entrepreneur Award in 2009. For a long period of time, he held a significant position in the companies like AT&T Bell Labs and Digital Equipment Corporation. He also played a key role in the development of emerging network technology driven by the U.S. Department of Defense. He also gets the credits for creating new in-line fibre optic amplification systems, capable of obtaining unprecedented data transmission latency speeds of 6.071 milliseconds over 1231 kilometres of fibre.

Bosack along with his ex-wife Lerner, founded a charitable organisation, with the 70% of the money they received after selling their Cisco stocks. The foundation works towards animal welfare and finances various science projects.