Zimbra Inc.
PATRICK BRANDT
CHAIRMAN AND CEO
Few chief executives are likely pleased to know about snooping by the United States and other governments on private electronic communications. But for Patrick Brandt, that government spying has been a blessing in disguise. Brandt is chairman and CEO of Frisco-based Zimbra Inc., a supplier of software that lets roughly 200,000 organizations worldwide set up online “communities” where employees, customers, and other parties can interact with the business and each other. Founded as Telligent in 2004, the company took on the Zimbra moniker following the July 2013 acquisition of a business by that name from California-based VMWare. That deal added a software product line that handles collaboration and messaging functions for corporate employees such as email, calendars, task management, and file sharing. Zimbra provides its wares to more than 1,000 re-sellers in more than 135 countries, who in turn make them available over the web or private networks to the Raytheons of the world. For Brandt, the beauty of Zimbra’s model is that companies in, say, Brazil and Argentina can use the software through re-sellers that host the software in those countries, keeping their communications and data out of the grasp of spooks. Although Brandt declines to disclose revenue, Zimbra’s 250-employee staff should grow by 75 to 100 people during 2014. —J.B.
Zix Corp.
RICK SPURR
CHAIRMAN AND CEO
For the Dallas email security firm Zix Corp. (NYSE: ZIXI), the last couple of years have been about sowing seeds for future growth. According to chairman and chief executive Rick Spurr, 2014 may be the start of the harvest. In March of 2013, Zix, whose bread and butter is email encryption, introduced a product line called ZixDLP. The technology scans all of a company’s email and related attachments for sensitive corporate information as those communications leave an enterprise. Should an email improperly include, say, a proprietary customer list, ZixDLP blocks and quarantines the missive. The company can then decide what to do based on tools that are part of the ZixDLP package. In September of last year, the company unveiled ZixOne, a system that lets employees access corporate email and attachments on their smartphones, all while keeping that information safe for the company. Rather than downloading the email and attachments directly onto the smartphone, ZixOne keeps it “in the cloud,” meaning in offsite servers. Although employees can read, write, reply to, and forward email, the missives and related attachments are handled on the company’s servers, where they’re secure. ZixDLP and ZixOne are big reasons why Zix has told Wall Street that its 2014 revenue should be between $53 million and $55 million, up from $48 million last year. Another reason is that Spurr is investing in new sales and marketing muscle to promote both the new and existing product lines. —J.B.
