SEMICONDUCTORS/ EDA/ HARDWARE

ARISTOS LOGIC: Aristos Logic was born in early 2000 as a spin-off from harddisk drive manufacturer, Western Digital. The network storage device company has developed the industry's first fully integrated I/O controller device. It integrates expertise in software and firmware development, systems design, disk drive and RAID technologies; and hopes that this unique blend of expertise will enable it to beat competition. “Data is being created at an exponential rate and this has magnified the need for effective ways to store and manage this data. Networked storage provides this capability and Aristos Logic is developing technologies that will dramatically enhance the performance and manageability of networked storage,” explains Anil Gupta, CEO and President.

CORRENT: Corrent Corporation, an Arizona-based fabless semiconductor company providing high-speed Internet security for IP networks, was recently energized after securing $16 million in Series C funding in mid-February. Corrent offers standard silicon and board offerings as well as design services for custom OEM development. “As the first to sample system-on-a-chip security processors at gigabit and above speeds, we help networking and server equipment designers to provide an advanced architecture that is designed specifically for security on the Internet,” says Richard Takahashi, CEO and President of Corrent.

SILICON LABS: The Austin, Texas-based Silicon Laboratories has exhibited remarkable resilience in the midst of the recent economic downturn. While other chip companies are barely managing to survive, Silicon Labs continues to turn impressive profits while its stock price hovers in the admirable range of $20 to $30 a share. The key to success, according to Navdeep Sooch, co-founder and CEO of Silicon Labs, is being dynamic. “The company was founded in 1996, and our chips were targeted to analog modems, since that was the hot industry at the time. Now, half our revenues are derived from wireless products, while the rest comes from wireline products,” Sooch explains. Sooch admits that “it's not the best of times, but it's also not the worst of times. The semi industry has seen better days, but Silicon Labs has still been able to grow pretty steadily for the past one and a half years.” Although only about one percent of Silicon Labs' revenues currently derive from optical communications, Sooch believes that optical communications will be hot in the future. Sooch remains confident that the value of Silicon Labs' product will enable it to stay ahead of the competition. “Four factors are key here: cost, power consumption, space, and performance. Our products are substantially superior to those of our competitors with respect to all four of these factors,” Sooch proclaims.

SOFTWARE/ INTERNET

marketRx: Selling a pharmaceutical product is a bit more complicated than, say, selling a car—which is why so-called "marketing informatics" companies have recently stepped into the picture. Bridgewater, New Jersey-based marketRx, Inc. is one such company, a provider of Web-based platforms and applications that enable pharmaceutical companies to offer interactive marketing and customer service to physicians. For a company that was founded just over two years ago, marketRx has managed to take on board a number of impressive clients, including Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, Merck, and Bristol-Meyers Squibb. Jassi Chadha, marketRx's co-founder and current CEO, attributes the company's success to its unique value-added services. “What differentiates us from the competition is that we combine marketing research with actual marketing. We don't just supply pharmaceutical companies with data, but we help them to analyze the data and produce results,” explains Chadha.

INFORMATICA: Gaurav Dhillon, co-founder and CEO of Informatica (NASDAQ: INFA), has helped to take the company from a privately funded US operation to a multinational, publicly traded corporation in a matter of a few years. Silicon Valley-based Informatica, founded in 1993, provides business analytics software that helps companies monitor and manage the performance of key business operations. Even in these tough times, Dhillon proudly notes that Informatica has maintained an impressive list of clients, including Chevron, Cisco, and Polo Ralph Lauren. "Informatica continues to execute in a difficult environment, keeping costs under control and closing good business despite current economic conditions," says Dhillon.

SELECTICA: For a company whose stock was hovering around $100 per share just two years back, Silicon Valley-based Selectica's (NASDAQ: SLTC) recent stock performance—vacillating between three and six points—is nothing to write home about. Or is it? In the current economic climate, the fact that the e-business solution provider hasn't tanked altogether is an accomplishment unto itself. According to Selectica's co-founder and CEO, Dr. Sanjay Mittal, the company's marketing strategy had to evolve in order to remain competitive. “We built our company on the strength of our technology, but we soon realized that this wasn't enough to sell our product. Now, many of our high-profile customers—like Dell, BMW, and Cisco—talk publicly of the enormous value of using Selectica's technologies,” explains Dr. Mittal. So what prompted this aggressive marketing campaign? The company was subject to a rude awakening about a year and a half back when enterprise software giants, such as Oracle and Siebel, began to offer e-business solutions. Since then, Selectica has been attempting to prove to potential clients that size doesn't matter: it's the bottom line that counts. “We tell companies, 'don't be swayed by the size of the company—you should choose the better product.' And there's no doubt that Selectica has the better product on all fronts,” effuses Dr. Mittal.

NETWORKING/ COMM/ WIRELESS

FORCE10 NETWORKS: When Milpitas, California-based Force10 Networks announced that it raised a whopping $168 million in funding over the past two years, eyebrows were raised. Founded in May 1999, Force10 Networks delivers high-performance 10-gigabit ethernet for local area network, metropolitan area network, and wide-area network environments. The company is sheepish about revealing the details of its product since it's in semi-stealth mode, but it has already managed to impress technologists at tech shows nationwide.

NEOTERIS: Netscape heroes, Jim Clark and Jim Barksdale, helped to fuel the hype surrounding the Sunnyvale startup, Neoteris, by serving as its lead investors late last year. Neoteris claims that it can save companies money by giving their employees and suppliers access to corporate networks through Web browsers instead of more elaborate VPNs. Neoteris, according to Clark, is “a nice alternative to VPNs. This may not be a pioneering market, but it's going to be an instant market that grows rapidly.” But Neoteris CEO Kittu Kolluri seems to harbor more ambitious thoughts for the company. “There is no question in my mind that we are going to revolutionize the way people access their corporate networks,” said Kolluri.

BROCADE: San Jose, California-based Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: BRCD), a provider of infrastructure solutions for Storage Area Networks (SANs), continues relentlessly to make inroads in the network storage industry in spite of economic adversity. Brocade's aim is to help companies to simplify the implementation of SANs, reduce the total cost of ownership of data storage environments, and improve network and application efficiency. Recently, in fact, EMC has made Brocade's Fabric Switch technology available to its many global customers.

IT SERVICES

VIRTUSA: Kris Canekeratne, Chairman and CEO of Virtusa, isn't worrying about revamping his company's business model. Virtusa, which develops and deploys enterprise solutions, has recorded double-digit growth over the past several quarters. “Unlike other companies in the IT services sector, Virtusa has emerged unscatched from the tech meltdown. This is an endorsement of our founding vision,” says Canekeratne. From the beginning, Canekeratne has believed in generating new streams of revenue for his customers rather than offering them mere cost savings.

SVT Inc: Sanjay Sethi, founder of SVT, Inc., sits on an impressive client list filled with Fortune 500 companies. How did he manage to rope them in? Prior to SVT, Sethi was a freelance consultant for Wall Street companies, which has allowed him to provide IT Services to the same illustrious set of companies. The current economic doldrums has led him to keep a close eye on company spending. “There was huge profitability in the hey-day, but now, profit margins have declined dramatically. It is a tough time to be in IT services, but growth is certainly there,” says an optimistic Sethi.

IONIDEA: The Fairfax, Virginia-based IT services company, IonIdea Inc., is struggling to cope with the meltdown. “I am not alone in the struggle. The whole industry is reeling,” says Brindala Ananthram, the company's founding President. Her company, which initially offered only telecom solutions, has recently diversified into the financial and healthcare sectors as well. Aside from her diversification efforts, Ananthram has embarked on a number of partnerships of late. “We teamed with other companies so that we could go after large projects, which has helped us considerably,” she says.

OTHERS

eWaken: Hari Kumar, founder and President of the IT consulting firm, eWaken Technology, recently walked into the executive offices of Gillette with an offer they couldn't refuse. “I told them, ‘Don't pay us anything up front. We'll take a twenty percent cut from whatever money we save your company,’” explains Kumar. Gillette quickly accepted this no-risk offer and, in less than a month, eWaken saved Gillette a staggering $9 million. eWaken's deal with Gillette reflects a newly transformed business strategy, according to Kumar. “In 2001, in the midst of the economic downturn, we completely revamped our business model. We realized that tech companies were having trouble pushing their product into an unreceptive market, but we knew that CEOs, CIOs, and CFOs still had to prove to their companies that they were doing their best to cut costs in lean times. So, we catered to the needs of the upper management-we offered them an immediate return on investment. Now, we tell these folks, ‘what we do for you will be completely self-funded.’ That kind of offer is hard to turn down,” says Kumar. “You know, the future of the IT industry is still very bright,” he insists. “The current situation isn't nearly as bad as most people make it out to be. The crash just brought us back to earth, where we should be anyway.”