Computer software company

PROFILE

Symark International

Year Founded: 1985

Core Business: Business security software

Revenues in 2002: $9.5 million

Revenues in 2003: $10 million

Employees in 2002: 45

Employees in 2003: 50

Goal: To continue to grow the company

Driving Forge: To help large companies protect their vital digital assets from damage by trusted users, whether intentional or not

Two decades ago, Robert Sommers and Doug Yarrow were senior sales executives with Informatics General Corp., a technology company that was the subject of a hostile takeover.

Soon enough, they were issued their walking papers. But not before the two were able to plot an exit strategy.

Sommers still recalls a meeting he and Yarrow had with their boss, near the end of the line.

"The boss was fumbling around with papers and we were as calm as can be," Sommers said.

The day after they were laid off, Sommers and Yarrow founded Symark International. The Agoura Hills-based company, with projected revenues this year of $13 million, develops security software for computer systems used by large businesses. Its revenue is projected to grow by 25 percent this year.

Symark owns two software products, PowerBroker and PowerPassword, which help establish security protocols on computer networks using Unix and Linux operating systems. Clients pay a licensing fee based on the number of machines on which the products are installed. A 25-machine license costs about $45,000.

The company has managed to hold its own against a well: heeled major competitor, Computer Associates Inc. subsidiary e-Trust.

"We consistently win contracts over them," Sommers said. "In our industry, we are not considered that small."

The products allow companies to limit the number of users who can access sensitive company data or inadvertently alter a computer's operating system. The software can prevent problems such as the one faced by America Online Inc. recently, when an employee stole and sold lists of AOL's customers to marketing spammers.

The problem arises because many business networks grant anyone with administrative powers full access to the system. This leaves the system vulnerable to hackers, disgruntled employees or the tech-illiterate executive hitting the wrong key. PowerBroker remedies these problems by allowing selective access to individuals, based on need. (PowerPassword is a complementary product.)

The partners have built the business without debt or venture capital, an approach that has slowed potential growth, Sommers said, but that was done consciously so he and Yarrow could retain control--and keep the company out of trouble.

"We believe a company must have strong financials to survive over the long term," he said.

Sommers and Yarrow are not techies. Both worked in sales and marketing at Informatics, which speaks to Symark's mission in its early days. It began as a company that distributed Open VMS, an operating system for Digital Equipment Corp. computers. But soon Symark was bringing in its own tech experts.

In the mid-1980s, the DEC system began to lose market share to Unix-based computer systems while Microsoft Corp. made the transition to Windows from DOS. Sommers and Yarrow began considering whether to distribute software for those two products.

They chose Unix over Windows, because it was a more mature product at the time and was being used for so-called "mission critical" applications by large companies--a retailer's inventory system, for instance. Sommers and Yarrow had previous experience marketing to these companies, and wanted to go after companies with big pocketbooks as their target market.

"We knew good software was being developed outside of the U.S.," said Sommers. "We would bring it into the U.S. and sign an exclusive distribution agreement with those companies."

It wasn't until the mid-1990s, however, that Symark would purchase the software products that would become the company's mainstay, PowerBroker and PowerPassword.

By then, the company had been expanding into other areas, including obtaining some software products that were compatible with Windows. But in 1998, Symark began focusing its efforts on developing and improving the two security software programs it had acquired, which apply only to Unix systems.

"We decided we couldn't be all things to all people," Sommers said.

Since the company made that choice, Windows has emerged as a stronger competitor to Unix in business computer networks. (Linux, a variant of Unix, has also become more widely adopted.) But Symark officials aren't unhappy with the decision they made.

One benefit has been the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, passed in 2002. Under Sarbanes-Oxley, chief executive officers have to sign off on a statement attesting to the accuracy of their reports. PowerBroker gives these executives reassurance that the data is correct and nothing is corrupt, Sommers said.

Other legislation that has been helpful to Symark is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which set more stringent privacy rules for health insurers and hospitals, and a defense security law known by the acronym Nispom.

Southwest Gas Corp., based in Las Vegas, is one customer that came to Symark thanks to Sarbanes-Oxley.

The company conducted an internal audit of Ks computer systems to see if it was in compliance before deciding to purchase PowerBroker, said Rich White, senior systems analyst with Southwest Gas.

Previously, when backup administrators needed root privileges, they were given the root password, White said. But that gave them access to other functions unrelated to backups.

"With PowerBroker, we can delegate administrative privileges without disclosing the root password," he said.

The software also provides the company a full audit trail for root activities--alterations at the deepest level of the software code--said Nicholas Laurent, manager of information technology audit at Southwest Gas. "It establishes accountability through the audit trail."