| In-Depth Tech
Austin: Guard-IT Gets to the Intellectual Source From the
Austin Business Journal, July 27, 2001
By Ann Hatchitt, special to the Austin Business
Journal
One
Austin high tech company is truly getting to the
source.
By
independently administering "source
escrow" agreements, Austin-based Guard-IT
Corp. becomes a trusted third party, helping
software developers and their licensees protect
source code and intellectual property.
"The
service we provide at Guard-IT is
proactive," company founder and CEO Jim Ford
says.
"I
know we are solving problems and heading off
potential problems. Many companies have been
burned in the past when they paid top dollar for
software, and then the developer went out of
business, for example. Establishing source escrow
agreements is becoming a more common practice in
the industry today."
George
Meyer, an attorney with Gray Cary Ware &
Freidenrich LLP in Austin, says: "There are
many scenarios which could leave the licensee
vulnerable, especially in the case of
mission-critical software. Events called
`triggering conditions' include the licensor
going out of business, filing for bankruptcy or
not continuing to support the version of the
software.
"Disputes
about software can be costly when, for example, a
plant that produces $3 million of product a day
sits idle. ... Jim and I get together and
exchange war stories about different challenges
we've seen in the intellectual property arena
when there are no source escrow agreements in
place."
How
did the company get started?
With
a journalism degree from Southwest Texas State
University in San Marcos, Ford started his career
in legal publishing. In the early 1990s, he began
setting up dial-up databases at the Austin Daily
Record. He moved to Web-based communication as
legal information services manager at the Austin
American-Statesman.
His
background in legal information and technology
came in handy when he answered a telephone call
from an attorney friend in Bryan.
Linda
McLain, a partner at Rodgers Miller & McLain
PC in Bryan, asked Ford what he knew about source
escrow agreements. McLain simply needed some
help. Now, McLain and another of Ford's friends,
Austin attorney Terry Belt, are officers of
Guard-IT.
When
was the company founded?
The
company was founded in March 1999. Ford says the
company spent the first few months hammering out
the details of source escrow agreements. Today,
Ford handles the business and marketing, and
McLain and Belt handle the legal issues.
What
is the company's revenue performance?
Growth
for the first six months of 2001 is up 500
percent over all of last year combined, Ford
says.
"We
got started in the good times and needed no
outside funding. Even today, we are going against
the flow of the economic downturn. Companies
realize they need our services," Ford says.
Does
the company plan to go public?
Ford
says going public isn't an option right now. A
buyout by a larger source escrow company would be
the more logical scenario, but he wants nothing
to do with it.
"We
are fending off potential buyers. They see the
big market that I see. It validates what we are
doing," he says.
Who
are Guard-IT's competitors?
Norcross,
Ga.-based DSI Technology Escrow Services, a
subsidiary of Boston-based Iron Mountain Inc.,
recently acquired two of Guard-IT's largest
competitors, Fort Knox Escrow Services of Atlanta
and Sourcefile LLC of Oakland, Calif.
The
two acquisitions bring DSI's client base to more
than 40,000 customers in 72 countries. Although
Guard-IT's client base is significantly smaller,
Ford says he thinks the company's potential
market is huge. He says being located in the
Silicon Hills will be an advantage in the long
run.
What
is the company's mission or purpose?
"It
takes a company with integrity to negotiate
source escrow agreements, and Guard-IT offers
that to our clients. I like being the facilitator
and making all the parties feel
comfortable," Ford says.
Guard-ITs
escrow services are used when two are more
parties are negotiating a license for technology,
such as software or other types of proprietary
information. If the licensee of that technology
is concerned the vendor will no longer provide
support sometime in the future, then the licensee
will request the technology or source code by
placed in an escrow account.
Who
are the company's clients?
Among
the Guard-IT's big-name customers are America
Online Inc., Best Buy Co. Inc. and Pitney Bowes
Management Services. Its Austin clients include
InfoGlide Software Corp. and QuickArrow Inc.
Ann
Hatchitt is an Austin-based freelance writer.
Article text copyright 2001, American City
Business Journals Inc.
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Copyright
1999-2009 Guard-IT Corporation, Austin, Texas.
All rights reserved.
Page updated 01.02.2009.
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