Computing Edge – Startup to Acquisition and Beyond

Computing Edge was founded by Dwain Kinghorn, one of the partners at SageCreek.   That experience has given him a great context from which to help other companies as they go from a very small team to a larger and more mature organization.

Computing Edge was able to build its initial business by defining a clear market segment and executing as fast as it could around that market opportunity. In this case, the opportunity was to extend and enhance the management functions of Microsoft’s Systems Management Server product.

“Our long term vision was to develop a set of products that could work independent of the Microsoft platform. Ultimately you can only grow so far when you rely on other products as a prerequisite. However to build the initial brand and go to market relationships, leveraging the Microsoft sales channel was key.” said Dwain Kinghorn. In fact, one of the things that we did was to actually organize and own the SMS Users Conference.” This served as a great way to bring a whole community together that wanted to learn about the overall Microsoft story and then Computing Edge was right there to showcase their complimentary solutions. By the third SMS user conference, Computing Edge had over 700 attendees and it was a profitable venture. Today this conference still exists as the rebranded Microsoft Management Summit.

As the founder of a small technology company, Dwain also knows what it is like to go through the management of cash flow and oversee tight controls on expenses. Dwain continued, “When we engage with a smaller company, I know what it means to make payroll. I know what it feels like as a founder to have put my house up as collateral for a line of credit with the bank. I know what it feels like to manage that all important cash flow. I even know what it feel like to get a call from the fire department that your office was burglarized and and set on fire, though I’d just as soon forget that one!” Of course not all SageCreek clients are in a startup mode, but these experiences from Computing Edge provide real world context when talking with other companies.

One of the key things that all founders and small company managers need to do is to confront the brutal facts. “I know very well that in an organization you have to have a passion and vision for where you want to get to, but also be honest enough to confront the brutal facts. A problem that I have seen many times is that the leaders in a small organization are so busy that they don’t take time to see the looming issues on the horizon and work to correct them before they have a major impact. As I work with our clients I can take the lessons from those experiences to help management honestly assess strengths as well as weaknesses in the company.”

Computing Edge grew revenue and profits each year it was in business. A key part to the success in growing revenue was hiring the right team.   Computing Edge was able to partner with an experienced development team in Australia that provided more technology vision beyond the founder.   This partnership grew into a merger of the teams into a single company.  ”Even a small company can look to strategic M&A activity as a way to grow the business,” said Dwain.   Key new hires were made and a culture was setup to empower people to go out and deliver results.    More and more customers started to use the products standalone as opposed to just extending their Microsoft SMS installation. Clearly the opportunity was there to take the business to a whole new level.

Like all smaller organizations, there was always a need for additional capital. The management team at Computing Edge decided while there had been very solid profitable growth, if the products were truly going to be able to be adopted by a larger customer base it would be best to pursue a strategic acquisition process. “All leaders, and especially those in a smaller organization, need to know their own personal strengths and weaknesses. My strength is to drive product vision and align the products with the business opportunity at hand. We decided that as opposed to bringing venture capital into Computing Edge, we would be better served to look upstream and find an acquisition opportunity. By finding the right strategic partner Computing Edge technology could be adopted by a much broader set of customers. That is when I met with Altiris. From the initial meetings it was clear that the business relationship with Compaq and VC backing that Altiris already had in place when combined with the Computing Edge products would be an industry changing event.”

Computing Edge merged with Altiris in 2000 and the Computing Edge products became the foundation upon which Altiris built its award winning Client Management Suite and Total Management Suite products. Dwain continued to drive the technology vision at Altiris as CTO. Symantec acquired Altiris in 2007 for over $1B.  Even now as Altiris has become a part of Symantec, the same Computing Edge vision – now referred to as Notification Server 7.0 – is still being used as an industry leading system management platform.   The Altiris group within Symantec drove over $320M in revenue in Altiris’ first year within Symantec.