Where Are They Now? In the Trenches With Four Emerging Companies

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June 11, 2001 (Computerworld) --

Winners Focus on Customer Where Are They Now? In the Trenches With Four Emerging Companies Turmoil Benefits Users Making Room in the Supply Chain Fundamentals Are the Future Sales Talent Key to Top Position What it's like to work at... Emerging Companies Follow-up: Methodology

ProClarity Corp. This business intelligence software vendor, which changed its name from Knosys Inc. in April to align with its signature product, has seen 150% revenue growth and has doubled its head count in the past year. And in April, the Boise, Idaho-based company unveiled its Internet-enabled ProClarity Analytic Platform 4.0, which customers can use to organize and analyze data such as sales leads.

The World Bank Group in Washington, which works with government agencies and the private sector to provide money to developing countries, uses ProClarity to crunch some complex data. Ronnie Hammad, a senior economist at World Bank, says ProClarity 3.0 lets his analysts quickly collect economic indicators from 180 countries and determine how well countries are performing against financial goals. That information is easier to collect with ProClarity, says Hammad, so the task doesn't require a senior-level programmer.

ProClarity designs its products exclusively for Microsoft Corp.'s Analysis Services package, which comes with Microsoft SQL Server 2000. "[ProClarity] is pretty well positioned and has good name recognition because it's closely linked with Microsoft," says Dan Vesset, an analyst at IDC in Framingham, Mass. ProClarity now has more than 250 corporate customers and 30 independent software vendor partners.

Extensibility Inc. This XML tools vendor was acquired by Palo Alto, Calif.-based e-business software vendor Tibco Software Inc. last August. Chapel Hill, N.C.-based Tibco Extensibility Inc. launched its XML Canon/Developer portal for publishing XML schemas in March and says it continues to grow, despite the current high-tech slump. "We have a slew of new customers," claims Vice President and Chief Scientist Lee Buck, citing deals with The Goldman Sachs Group Inc., DaimlerChrysler and Sabre Inc. "We've added about 15 or 20 people," he adds. But Buck is more cautious about future growth, saying, "We're being highly selective [about hiring new people] at this point. It's obviously a tough economic environment."

Arcot Systems Inc. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based digital identity software vendor landed Union Pacific Corp., the largest U.S. railroad carrier, as a customer in December. Omaha-based Union Pacific plans to deploy Arcot's WebFort as the identity security for its arsenal of extranet and internal applications. WebFort combines digital certificate and encryption technology to hide the user's security key among several fake keys. In Arcot's security system, all the keys are readable, but only one unlocks access.

Last month, Arcot also won the role of security provider for Foster City, Calif.-based Visa International Inc.'s Payer Authentication service. The Web-based customer payment system aims to reduce credit card fraud. The Payer Authentication service will use Arcot's new TransFort product, which provides secure encryption for transaction-based systems. In January, Arcot received an undisclosed investment that brings its total funding to more than $40 million. The company's staff grew from 125 last November to 150 people.

Xpedior Inc. The high-tech stock dive in the spring of last year caused a disturbing drop in corporate spending, acknowledged Xpedior CEO David Campbell last fall. But he predicted at the time that the drop would be just "a phase." Fast-forward a half-year. Campbell's gone, and the company has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. When asked in mid-May if Xpedior was still operating, Dean Dranias, vice president of investor relations, hesitated. "I think it's best to just say we're still doing work for clients," he said from the company's Chicago headquarters, declining to give more information.

Xpedior's troubles took Andy Rieder, assistant vice president at Northbrook, Ill.-based Allstate Insurance Co., by surprise. Before kicking off a project management system installation with Xpedior last year, Allstate evaluated the company's technical strengths and felt it was on firm footing. Knowing that trouble was on the horizon "would have made a difference going in," says Rieder. But the new system was rolled out on time and on budget and has performed "swimmingly," he says.

Andy Estathiou, an analyst at The Yankee Group in Boston, says Xpedior made large investments in technology that combined with the weakening economy to push its revenue enough to start "a downward spiral."

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