Summit in the Silicon Desert

But all is not gloom and doom,quite the contrary. Recently, VARBusiness editors huddled with several well-funded and technically sound companies that are putting this engineering-rich corridor back on the map. The setting was the headquarters of our testing partner KeyLabs, in Lindon.

With more than 1,500 machines at the ready, KeyLabs has tested database software and IP-telephony products, among many other software and hardware products, for dozens of computer-industry vendors. In a wide-ranging and interactive all-day summit, VARBusiness editors T.C. Doyle and David Strom met with representatives from a dozen organizations. Here are some of the highlights from those meetings.

Altiris

This Lindon-based vendor expects to book close to $90 million in revenue, a 50 percent increase from last year's record performance. The company's stock is trading above its IPO price, and it was one of the top performers on the stock exchange last year. Altiris sells systems-management software, and has strong partners in HP and Dell to sell its software suite. A good indication that Altiris is capturing more repeat business: Sixty percent of its revenue comes from existing customers. "Our customers are coming back to us, wanting to use more products in our suite," says Jan Newman, vice president of business development.

Altiris is beefing up its partner marketing team so it may better cater to VARs, integrators and consultants. Last May, for example, the company recruited Carine Clark from Novell, who, in turn, recruited Tom Rhoton from an area start-up. Clark and Rhoton serve as director of product marketing and regional marketing manager, respectively.

Clark helps craft programs for global systems integrators, regional VARs and other partners. Before her arrival, very few leads found their way to partners. Now almost all do. That's significant when you consider 75 percent of the company's sales flow through the channel. More recently, she has turned her attention to the company's MDF program, through which partners can receive financial support for helping to market Altiris products. And thanks to Rhoton, Altiris VARs now have a formal plan for helping them spend the money they qualify to receive.

Landesk Software

This South Jordon-based company's assets and intellectual property were taken out of Intel's software division last September, and it has grown and been profitable ever since.

"There is a lot of momentum for our products," says Garrett Lyman, channel program manager. "We can show almost immediate ROI for our solutions. That's one reason why we had our best quarter in the history of the product."

Landesk has focused on five specific "pain points" for its software solution: operating system migration; applications deployment; maximization of system uptime and remote problem resolution; software licensing; and asset management and inventory.

The company has adopted the indirect model for all of its software sales and has certified almost 100 VARs. "A year ago, we had three in North America," Lyman says. "We have been really focused in recruiting and training resellers, and most of them are ramping up quickly. That is the key for us to deploy our products successfully."

One reason why Landesk's software is so attractive to the channel is its high margins,typically 15 to 25 points,and its high value-add that services can bring to the solutions providers. "Our VARs typically get 10 to 15 days of services at an average of $1,500 per day for every thousand nodes of Landesk they sell," Lyman says.

PowerQuest

Based in Orem, this vendor is transitioning from its desktop-imaging products, including Drive Image and Partition Magic, to a new line of backup and disaster-management tools called V2i Protector. The latest version was released in January and offers a unique method to rapidly restore a Windows 2000 server in the event of a catastrophic failure. The software creates an image of the server's disk's active state.

The company initially targeted small and midsize businesses with V2i Protector, but has been surprised that the Fortune 1000 is also interested, says Marilyn Harroun, PowerQuest's director of channel marketing. "Unlike other imaging products, we make a copy of all the data while the machine is actually running," she says. "And we can restore the server within a few minutes when other backup tools would take hours or days."

V2i Protector is sold mostly through the channel. "It is the perfect channel play," Harroun says. "It isn't all that complex a product, and with a $695 retail price, it is too inexpensive for a direct sales force to deal with."

FSLogic

This company, located in Provo, has two products that are still in beta test (and scheduled for summer release) but offer a unique solution to install multiple sets of software applications quickly and securely.

The products,Manage and Protect,are useful in situations where PCs are used in classrooms, Internet cafes or other publicly accessible locations. Such places often need to run software unique to an individual user,say, a student attending a class in a lab. The challenge is in removing all traces of this software quickly and easily for the next user. FSLogic has developed a "layering" technology that can keep track of an application's file system and registry footprint to make this all possible. Each software layer can be deleted, restored (along with user preferences and data) and archived, all without harming the remaining Windows installation.

Manage is used for installing different applications, while Protect will disable certain Windows features and allow users to modify only selected portions of the Windows desktop, according to Jared Blaser, president of FSLogic.

NetVision

Orem-based NetVision is shipping Version 4 of its integrated Policy Management Suite, which includes software tools for intrusion detection, network-vulnerability assessment and password synchronization.

The software goes beyond simple access control to handle how users behave and interact with their network security. For example, the product will flag when an administrator grants additional rights to a certain user, who then can damage network resources or steal data. "We go beyond just locking the door and looking at what the guys inside the network are doing," says Jim Allred, NetVision's vice president for marketing. The software can also examine a network for a given set of policies, such as password length and complexity, and automatically repair problems it finds, such as short or simple passwords.

"A rogue network administrator can destroy an entire environment in a few seconds," says Todd Lawson, NetVision CEO.

What makes NetVision different from other management tools is its relative simplicity to install and configure. "Our typical install is about one day," Lawson says. In addition, the average selling price ranges from $20,000 to $500,000.

Corda

Last month, the Lindon-based company unveiled two products that will appeal to VARs who sell to professional graphics designers, as well as salespeople, project managers and even executives looking for an easy way to get a bird's-eye view of their territories. With the company's new 5.0 release of OptiMap, for example, VARs can create interactive mapping solutions for those who need to be able to monitor sales activity in a given region.

One breakthrough, in particular, that could appeal to VARs who cater to governmental accounts: a descriptive text feature that can transform a Web page into a fully compliant Section 508 Web Site for the visually impaired.

In addition to the new version of OptiMap 5.0, the company last month also released Version 5.0, an upgrade to its flagship PopChart product.

Cerberian

This developer of enterprise-level Internet-filtering software is based in Draper. It has tried several approaches to selling and marketing its products, including going after the desktop market. Now the company is focused on the device and server market, hoping to capture more of the OEM and ISP markets. Recently, for example, the company signed a deal with Belkin to bundle its Web filter with Belkin's line of networking hardware products. In addition, the company has relationships with SonicWall, CacheFlow and Computer Associates, among others.

Greg Heaps, vice president of marketing, says that various studies peg the amount of nonwork-related Internet surfing to be at an astonishing 30 to 40 percent. With his company's software, an organization can seize control of such activity and protect itself from harassment lawsuits, lost productivity time or worse. "VARs who can show customers how to best protect themselves will be able to put some money in their pockets," he says.

Vultus

Vultus, based in Lindon, is in what the company calls pre-VAR recruitment, says president and CEO Michael Meservy. Vultus is the developer of the WebFace Solution Suite, a standards-based browser application platform for delivering Web applications over the Internet. Think PowerBuilder meets PointCast. That's right, the company's software allows third parties to develop custom push-like applications. With Vultus' software, which shipped last August, developers can create content-rich applications and deliver them over the Web's thin clients.

Power Innovations

This Lindon company manufacturers a complete line of power-conditioning equipment, ranging from rack-mounted units the size of a 2U server to large units the size of a small truck that are used for large businesses and shopping malls.

Some of the products have unique features that have attracted such clients as the Federal Aviation Administration, which uses the gear to provide power to its radar installations, and the Salt Lake City Olympics, which last year purchased 500 units from Power Innovations to keep the various venues up and running. "The Olympic committee liked the fact that our software could manage all of our gear from a central location," says Robert Mount, CEO of Power Innovations.

One of the innovations the company is proud of is that its equipment is both modular and easy to repair. "People are afraid of these units because you are in there with high voltages," Mount says. "We put all the active components on plug-in boards and in drawers that roll in and out. You don't have to have a degree in electronics to service this gear."

Its latest product, the Chameleon, is a power-conditioning unit that ranges up to three kVA and starts at a retail price of $1,000. Although it doesn't contain any battery backup like a traditional UPS, it filters and cleans up the power signal, and works with a variety of voltage inputs and outputs.

Phonex Broadband

This Midvale-based vendor manufactures a complete line of home powerline networking products,adapters that can transmit Ethernet protocols over ordinary home AC power lines. A new product, called ReadyWire Combo, will be available this summer. It has a combination of USB and Ethernet jacks, something many vendors offer as two separate products, according to director of marketing Brad Warnock. The product, which was announced last month, will sell for less than $100 retail. This company is also working on an OEM chipset called ReadyWire, which will be able to transmit full CD-quality digital sound over home AC wires and handle up to 15 different audio streams at more than 500 Kbps.

Iomega

Although technically no longer a Utah company--Iomega moved its headquarters from Roy to San Diego in 2001--the maker of Zip drives and other storage devices also met with VARBusiness. The company currently has four NAS products that compete at the entry-level. But that's slated to change.

"Come April, we will have a very competitive offering in that critical $5,000 to $25,000 market segment," explains Wayne Arvidson, director of network storage marketing at Iomega. That segment, he adds, is projected to grow at a 46.9 percent compounded annual growth rate, according to Gartner.

DirectPointe

Last year, DirectPointe, a Lindon-based provider of subscription-based computing solutions, grew sales more than 200 percent over 2001. DirectPointe, which is aligned with HP and the Global Managed Service Provider Network, competes in the same category with Everdream, CenterBeam and Mindshift. The company provides complete, turnkey computing solutions for a monthly fee and will even help a customer get rid of its existing equipment before bringing in new gear. Like others, DirectPointe is struggling to close deals and distinguish itself in a crowded market. Despite the tough economy, the company is growing its revenue.

That, in fact, is what helps set all of these Silicon Desert companies apart from their rivals.