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Trend Micro

Trend Micro – The World’s Largest Web Security Firm.

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The past few years have been years of fast growth for the internet and other web services. From sending instant messages to making online payments, everything has been really easy for every person. But with this ease of doing things, the internet has also brought danger to the security of data and other important assets online. To deal with such situations, lots of firms and developers are already working dedicatedly to ensure safer web surfing to making big transactions online for people. One such name which has been successfully providing cyber security services to its clients is Trend Micro.

About The Company

Trend Micro Inc., aka Torendo Maikuro Kabushiki-Gaisha, is an American-Japanese multinational cyber security company founded on 24 October 1988. The company has its global headquarters based in Tokyo, Japan, and Irving, Texas, United States. It has been working to provide software solutions, cloud computing as well as cyber security services to its clients all around the world for the past 32 years. The cyber security solutions by Micro Trend cover all platforms based on VMWare, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and Amazon AWS, etc. The company has also launched its research, development, and support center, named TrendLabs, operational in different parts of Asia, Europe, and North America.

Trend Micro
Image source: wikimedia.org

The Founding of Trend Micro

Steve Chang, along with his wife, Jenny Chang, and her sister, Eva Chen, founded Trend Micro on 24 October 1988 in Los Angeles. The company started off by selling protection dongles to a United States-based Rainbow Technologies. Soon the founders shifted the company headquarters to Taipei, and Trend Micro acquired a Japanese software firm in 1992, moving the headquarters to Japan. The company bagged a contract from Intel and supplied anti-virus to the latter. Intel also helped Trend Micro to sell its anti-virus in the US and Europe.
In 1996, Trend Micro partnered with Novell. The company got listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 1998, and the next year, it start to trade on the United States-based NASDAQ. The company expanded its operations by acquiring companies like Braintree, Third Brigade, Identum, Kelkea, InterMute, and Provilla, etc. These acquisitions also helped Trend Micro to open offices in various parts of Europe, America, and Asia. By the end of the 2000s, Trend Micro was already making IP filtering software, antispyware programs, antispam software, data loss prevention software, and ID-based email encryption software.
With the acquisition of Leeds in June 2010, Trend Micro started to provide cloud-based data storage and synchronization services, too. In the next decade, the company acquired names like Mobile Armor, AffirmTrust, Broadweb, IMMUNIO, TippingPoint, etc. In 2013, the company moved its headquarters to Irving, Texas, and the next year, it established a partnership with INTERPOL to provide its Threat Intelligence Service to the latter. Company also bagged a contract from Microsoft to offer Cloud App Security to Microsoft Office 365, which later was adopted by companies like Dropbox and Google Drive.
In 2015, Company got certified as a VCE validation ready as well Vblock ready solution. The company also added Deep Security to its platform. Trend Micro has also been investing in startups for quite some time now through its venture capital subsidiary named Trend Forward Capital. Few of its major investments include Veem, Muse, Mojio, and Interaxon. The company had a partnership with Telco Systems in 2017 so that to expand its operations into virtual network cybersecurity. The next year, Trend Micro partnered with Cybersecurity Tech Accord to design programs to deal with malicious attacks by cybercriminal gangs and nation-states.

The Founders

Steve Chang, along with his wife Jenny Chang and her sister Eva Chen, founded Trend Micro in 1988. He is a renowned Taiwanese businessman born in Pingtung, Taiwan, in 1954. Chang did his schooling at the National Pingtung Senior High School and attained a graduate degree from the Fu Jen Catholic University in 1977. He also went to the US to pursue a post-graduate degree in computer science from Lehigh University in 1978 and graduated in 1979.
Chang started his career at Hewlett-Packard in Taiwan, where he held the post of head of sales operations, handling operations in seven countries. After gaining enough experience, he decided to start Trend Micro in 1988. He was the first CEO of the company. Chang is a popular businessman and has won awards like “Star of Asia” by Business Week for his work.

OpenText Corporation

OpenText Corporation – A Software Company That Was Once The Largest In Canada.

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OpenText is a company based in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The founders of the company are Tim Bray, Gaston Gonnet, and Frank Tompa. This Canadian company was established in 1991 and it specializes in developing and selling enterprise information management (EIM) software. OpenText Corporation achieved success rapidly and expanded over time making it the largest software company in Canada in 2014. In 2016, the company was also recognized by Mediacorp Canada Inc as one of the top 100 Canadian employers.

About OpenText

There are various kinds of software applications that are developed by OpenText Corporation. This software helps large enterprises to manage and structure a large amount of unstructured data and helps in proper management. Apart from large enterprises, the software of OpenText is also used in many government agencies and professional service firms. OpenText also develops applications for mobile and online experience management.

Some of the main products of the company include Enterprise content management (ECM), Business Process Management (BPM), Customer Experience Management (CEM), Information Exchange, cybersecurity software, and many more. OpenText has more than 14,000 employees spread worldwide working to solve digital business challenges.

OpenText Corporation
Image source: www.cmscritic.com

The Early Phase Of OpenText Corporation

OpenText Corporation started off as a university project when the University of Waterloo and Oxford University partnered for this new journey. Both the universities joined hands to build the first online Oxford English dictionary. After the project showed positive results, OpenText Systems Inc was incorporated in 1989. But, eventually, the founders spun off the product from the University of Waterloo and OpenText Corporation was established in 1991. And, the company began shipping the product in September of the same year.

As the first online-based product of OpenText hit the market, it helped Yahoo! To search every word from every web page. An innovative product like this gained much popularity in the market and OpenText eventually became popular in the software industry. In 1994, Tom Jenkins joined OpenText as COO and was later made the President and CEO of the company. In 1996, the company held its first IPO and it got listed in NASDAQ under the name OTEX. Earlier in the next decade, OpenText crossed 1,000 employees and made $147 million as its annual revenue. By this time, OpenText also established 31 offices both in Canada and overseas.

Expansion And Acquisitions

As the demand for the products of OpenText increased, Gartner named the company as the global leader of ECM for the first time ever. It still holds the position as one of the leading companies which specialize in ECM. In 2014, the company decided to expand its market by adding B2B integration services and cloud-based fax services. OpenText achieved both of these when it acquired GXS for $1.06 billion. The company also became a market leader in content services when it acquired Dell EMC’s Enterprise Content Division including Documentum. The deal was closed for $1.62 billion in 2017.

The series of acquisitions continued for OpenText and so was expanding into new sectors every year. In 2019, OpenText acquired a company called Carbonite to enter the cybersecurity sector. Acquiring this company ensured cyber resiliency for customers along with an end-to-end platform offering data protection, digital forensics, etc. This deal was closed successfully for $1.45 billion. The acquisitions made by the company are made strategically to enter new markets and eventually become global leaders in those sectors. But, OpenText is yet to become one of the best companies in the cybersecurity sector. Last year, the company crossed the $3 billion mark of annual revenue.

About The Founders

Tim Bray apart from being a software developer is also an environmentalist and political activist. He studied mathematics and computer science for his bachelor’s degree. In 1987, Tim joined the Oxford English Dictionary project at the University of Waterloo, and before that he had working experience at Digital Equipment Corporation and Microtel Pacific Research.

Gaston Gonnet is a well-known computer scientist and entrepreneur. He became famous for his contributions to Maple Computer Algebra System. Gaston completed his education at the University of Waterloo. Apart from founding OpenText Corporation, he also co-founded Symbolic Computation Group.

Frank Tompa graduated from Brown University followed by the University of Toronto. He served as a faculty member at the University of Waterloo for some time. Frank is famous for co-founding OpenText and he was also awarded Queen Elizabeth II, Diamond Jubilee Medal, for his services to the country.

sage group

Sage Group – Story Of One Of The Largest Software Companies In The UK.

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The Sage Group was founded in 1981 and is one of the leading enterprise software companies in the UK. After Oracle and SAP, Sage has taken the third position in terms of becoming the largest supplier of enterprise resource planning software. The founders of the company are David Goldman, Paul Muller, and Graham Wylie. Sage Group is currently based in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, UK. The product of Sage has its usability in all types of industrial sectors worldwide. Today, Sage Group has more than 13,000 employees that serve millions of businesses in both the UK and overseas. The company is spread across 23 international markets in Latin America, North America, Asia, Australia, Africa, and Europe. Steve Hare is the CEO of the Sage Group and Sir Donald Brydon is the working Chairperson.

Foundation of the Sage Group

The origin of the Sage Group and the idea behind it dates back to 1981 when David Goldman wanted to create quotes for his print business and keep track of his account. He wanted a very impactful solution for this and started working with a team at Newcastle University. While working, he was assisted by Dr. Paul Muller who was a computer expert working with NASA, and also a student, Graham Wylie who took a summer job writing code for an accounting firm. David and other members of the team realized that the solution that they were building can be beneficial for other businesses as well. This idea led to the foundation of the Sage Group which aimed to develop accounting software for small businesses.

Today, the solutions of Sage include account management, payrolls, HR, assets, construction, estate, enterprise systems, etc. Once David and other team members started to develop the product, he hired more employees. The first product of the company was called Sage Accounts and the code was written by Graham Wylie, the student who was hired for a summer job at Campbell Graphics (the print business of David Goldman). After developing the first product successfully, Sage started selling the software to other printing businesses and eventually expanded its network. Impressed by the work of Graham and Dr. Paul, they were brought on board as a part of Sage.

sage group
Image source: wikimedia.org

The Success of the Company

After developing the first version of the product and selling it to other print businesses, the demand for Sage increased. In 1984, the company developed Sage Software, a product that was built for the Amstrad PCW word processor. The same year, the sale of the Sage Software increased by ten folds from 30 to 300 each month. After a few years, Sage got listed on the London Stock Exchange and became a publicly-traded company. In the 1990s, Sage expanded overseas and established an Irish division of the business in Dublin. The company also opened Sage’s professional Accountant Division and entered FTSE 100. Sage eventually entered the mid-range business software market by the end of the 20th century.

In 2001, Sage Group entered the contact management market after acquiring Interact Commerce Inc and next year bagged the “Business of the Year” in the National Business Awards. The company also became famous as the Sage shares performed the best in the 90s compared to other UK businesses. Sage also sponsored £6 million for the new music center in Gateshead which is now known as Sage Gateshead. After two years, in 2003, Graham Wylie retired from the company and there were new members joining the executive team of Sage. Steve Hare became the CEO of the company in 2018 and before that, he served as the CEO of Sage since 2014. The Sage group currently has 6.1 million customers spread across the world from Africa to the Middle East, from Australia to Asia focusing on management solutions as well as engaging in non-profit works.

Steve Hare – CEO of Sage Group

Steve Hare is a famous British businessman who joined Sage with a rich industrial experience. He worked at General Electric Company in many roles including serving as the CFO of the company. He also worked at Spectris plc and Invensys and was a partner at Apax Partners. Currently, he is the CEO of the Sage Group and he was named the best CEO of the UK by Glassdoor during the pandemic.

Dassault Systèmes

Dassault Systèmes – A Pioneer in Computer-Aided Design.

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3D technology and simulation software has helped people deal with numerous challenges, thanks to the companies that entirely focus on developing those technologies. Dassault Systèmes SE is one such company that has been applying its innovation to develop software, which at a time was out of imagination. This French company has been in the industry for about 40 years and is constantly providing its top-notch technology software to its customers worldwide. Dassault Systèmes is mostly known for its 3DEXPERIENCE platform, which is popular among companies for creating, testing, and optimizing their consumer and business-to-business products and services.

About the Company

Dassault Systèmes is a France based software development giant, having its headquarters based in Vélizy-Villacoublay, France. The company is known for software development for 3D product design, simulation, manufacturing, etc., and according to Fortune magazine, is among such top 50 largest software companies.
Previously, the company was a subsidiary of Dassault Aviation. But in 1981, the company spun off from the latter and since then has been operating as an independent company. Dassault Systèmes is operative in about 140 countries, and over 20,000 people are working for it worldwide. The company mainly deals in the development of products like 3D design software, 3D Digital Mock-up, and Product lifecycle management, 3DEXPERIENCE platform is one of its most popular products. As per the 2020 records, Dassault Systèmes has made €4.45 billion in revenues and holds assets worth €13.87 billion.

Dassault Systèmes
Image source:: businesswire.com

The Founding and Growth of Dassault Systèmes

Francis Bernard co-founded Dassault Systèmes in 1981. Before founding the company, Bernard worked at Dassault Aviation as an Aerospace engineering. The company developed aircraft and eventually got into developing software for them. This led Bernard to learn software engineering, resulting in the development of the world-famous CATIA (a multi-platform software suite for CAD, CAM, CAE, PLM, etc.). Being one of the developers of CATIA, Bernard is also known as one of the fathers of CATIA. In his tenure at Dassault Aviation, from 1967 to 1981, he developed multiple software for the company.
Though CATIA was a personal property of Dassault Aviation, the company decided to start selling the software to other aviation companies. The decision led to the spinning off of the design division of Dassault Aviation, forming Dassault Systèmes in 1981, and Bernard becoming the CEO.
IBM was one of the first partners of Dassault Systèmes. In 1982, the company launched the CATIA Version 1 (V1), and version 3 (V3 for 3D design) and 4 (V4 for full Digital Mock-Up) came in the years 1986 and 1994, respectively. The introduction of those versions replaced the method of physical prototyping completely. In 1997, the company acquired SOLIDWORKS, and in the next year, it launched ENOVIA (a brand for product data management).
In 1999, Desault introduced the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), suitable for simulation analysis, 3D designs, and digital manufacturing. Another digital manufacturing brand was introduced with the name DELMIA in the year 2000. In the coming years, the company acquired names like Abaqus, Virtools, MatrixOne, EXALEAD, NETVIBES, 3DEXPERIENCE, Simple S.A.S., Accelrys, and IQMS, etc. Those acquisitions helped the company to enhance its capability and expand globally. In 2012, the company launched its one of the most innovative product, i.e., 3DEXPERIENCE platform, popular among all size enterprises and companies.

The Founder

Francis Bernard founded Dassault Systèmes in 1981. He was born in 1940 in Hanoi, French Indochina. He completed an MS in aerospace engineering from Institut Supérieur de l’Aéronautique et de l’Espace (Supaero) in 1965. After doing military service for two years, he joined Dassault Aviation in 1967. Though he started as an aerospace engineer, he got involved in the software development of computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) programs at the company, and later, developed CATIA. Bernard was the first CEO of Dassault Systèmes and retired in 1995 after serving for 14 years at the same position.

Datadog

Datadog – The Watchdog for the Cloud Services.

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Cloud computing has opened new doors for new technologies and new ideas. The very technology is not quite old but has revolutionized the IT world. With the benefits, things also come with some serious problems, and in the case of cloud technology, it was data security. But since with a problem, there is always a solution, Datadog came into existence to solve the problem of data security for cloud services.

Datadog is an eleven-year-old company founded in 2010 in New York, and in just a decade, the company has gone global. The company provides services like monitoring of servers, databases, tools, and services, etc., for cloud-scale applications using a SaaS-based data analytics platform.

About the Datadog

Datadog, as its name suggests, helps companies secure the data on cloud services. The company provides its services in the field of finance, manufacturing, and logistics, healthcare, retail/e-commerce, the public sector, media & entertainment, technology, and gaming, etc. It works on technologies, including AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Kubernetes, Red Hat OpenShift.

The company ensures to take all the end-to-end traces, metrics, and logs under observation so that they can provide maximum security to the client’s application, infrastructure, and third-party services. The company not only helps the companies secure their cloud services but also helps them enhance the user experience for their clients. Cloud migration, monitoring consolidation, shift-left testing, security analysis, hybrid cloud monitoring, IoT monitoring, log analysis & correlation are some of the services provided by Datadog. The Datadog platform has been developed using a Go-based agent. It also uses technologies like D3, Apache Cassandra, Kafka, PostgreSQL, etc.

Datadog
Image source: zenduty.com

The Back Story

Olivier Pomel and Alexis Lê-Quôc founded Datadog in 2010 in New York. The two founders were colleagues at Wireless Generation and developed the idea of founding Datadog while working at the company. Wireless Generation was acquired by NewsCorp, and at the same time, the two realized that there was constant friction between the developer and the systems administration teams. This led to the idea of developing software to help the teams working at cross-purpose, and hence Datadog came into being.

The founders held a seed round in 2010, and companies like NYC Seed, Contour Venture Partners, IA Ventures, Jerry Neumann, and Alex Payne participated in the funding. The rising demand for cloud services helped Datadog to become popular in no time. It was a cloud infrastructure monitoring service that every company required for their cloud services. Soon the company was working with all the major cloud service platforms, i.e., AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Red Hat OpenShift, VMWare, and OpenStack. The company then started to expand by acquiring companies like Mortar Data, such that to enhance the capabilities of the Datadog platform. Datadog also established a research and development office in Paris in 2015.

The next year, Datadog announced the beta-release of Application Performance Monitoring. The platform provided full-stack monitoring for cloud platforms for the first time. In 2017, the company went on to acquire a Paris-based company named Logmatic. This acquisition added the service like querying and visualization of the logs to Datadog platform, such that it made easier for the platform to monitor and troubleshoot the online services. In 2019, a company named Madumbo partnered with Datadog adding its AI-based application testing platform to Datadog. The same year, Company also entered Japan by establishing a subsidiary company in the country.

On 19 September 2019, Company went public on Nasdaq and raised $648 million by selling 24 million of its shares. In 2016, according to Deloitte’s 2016 Fast 500 List, Datadog was among the top ten fastest-growing companies in North America.

The Founders

Oliver Pomel is one of the founders of Datadog, who is serving as the CEO of the company. He holds an MS degree in Computer Science from Ecole Centrale Paris. He is one of the original authors of the VLC media player. Pomel has also worked with companies like IBM as a software engineer. He developed the data systems for K-12 teachers as a VP at Wireless Generation.

The other founder of Datadog is Alexis Lê-Quôc, who also serves as the CTO of Datadog. He was an Ecole Centrale Paris alumni and earned a master’s degree in Computer Science. He worked at Wireless Generation as the Director of Operations for a few years. Before that, he has also worked at companies like IBM, ORange, and Neomeo.

SolarWinds Inc

SolarWinds Inc – A Software Development Company that has Recently Fallen Victim to the World’s Largest Cyberattack.

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In the past year, the name of SolarWinds Inc has been crawling in every news website speaking of cyberattacks. SolarWinds is a major software developing company based in America which has many reputed multinational companies as its clients. Last year, the company was the victim of the most sophisticated and the largest cyberattack the world has ever witnessed. After this attack, a security firm called Trustwave raised some concerns regarding the security flaws in the products of SolarWinds which questioned if the company can protect its client’s privacy at all. The cyberattack followed by these allegations had a negative impact on the company’s reputation and the share price fell.

About SolarWinds Inc

SolarWinds Inc is an American software company with headquarters based in Austin, Texas. The company develops software for enterprises that helps in managing networks, IT infrastructure, and systems. SolarWinds has several offices in the US and overseas with more than 3,200 employees working for the company. Donald Yonce and David Yonce founded the company in 1999 and it became a publicly-traded company in 2009. The company has approximately 300,000 customers which include most of the Fortune 500 companies. There was a huge investigation last year when Orion, one of the SolarWinds products was compromised by a cyberattack.

SolarWinds Inc
Image source: owler.com

Early days

Donald Yonce, who was a former executive at Walmart along with his brother, David Yonce started SolarWinds in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Though the company was established in 1999, the two brothers started working on their products ahead of time. Trace Route and Ping Sweep were the first two products rolled out by the company. In November 2001, SolarWinds released its first web-based network performance monitoring application. In 2006, Michael Bennett became the CEO of the company and the headquarters were shifted from Tulsa to Austin. During 2007, the company raised funds from Bain Capital, Insight Venture Partners, and Austin Ventures. After the fundings, the company decided to file its first IPO of $112.5 million and became public in 2009.

After the first IPO, the company made several acquisitions and expanded rapidly. In 2011, it was featured in Forbes magazine as one of the top fastest-growing companies. Bennett’s leadership ended in 2010 and he was replaced by the former CFO of the company, Kevin Thompson. In 2013, the company announced that it will be investing in an operations hub in Utah. The company’s target was to develop high-functioning products at a low cost which is desirable by every enterprise. The same year, SolarWinds was named the Best Small Company in America by Forbes. The number of employees in SolarWinds doubled from 2011 to 2013 as the total count became 900. In 2016, the company had more than 1700 employees and generated annual revenue of half a billion dollars. During this time the company was taken private and again filed a public offering in 2018. Last year, Kevin Thompson retired and he was replaced by Sudhakar Ramakrishna. Currently, the company is trying to cope up with the losses it faced during the recent cyberattack.

Acquisitions

In 2007, the company received good funding and it decided to invest the money in new acquisitions. So, the company acquired Neon Software and monitor Corp. The company also opened a new office in Ireland for sales purposes. The company didn’t just acquire companies but also focused on acquiring products that matched the interest of the company. After the company became public in 2009, it acquired many companies including Kiwi Enterprises, Hyper9 Inc, TriGeo, EminentWare, etc. By this time the company opened offices outside the US, including Australia, Czech Republic, India, and Singapore. The recent companies acquired by the company are Capzure Technology, Librato, SpamExperts, VividCortex, etc.

Sudhakar Ramakrishna – CEO of SolarWinds

Sudhakar Ramakrishna has recently become the CEO of the company. He has 25 years of professional experience in different fields including networking, security, mobility, etc. He is the former CEO of Pulse Secure and also worked at Citrix, Motorola, 3Com, etc. Ramakrishna is an alumnus of Kansas State University.