After that day, Veritas had little trouble persuading businesses of the need to protect crucial data and guard against system crashes -- the work of its software storage and backup products.
"We came through with flying colors," Chairman Gary Bloom said.
Veritas recovered all the data for all 112 customers affected in New York and Washington, D.C., and people have since packed the company's disaster recovery seminars. The Mountain View-based company has used the seminars to sign up more business customers for consulting services -- deals Bloom hopes will lead to more software sales.
The surge in business after Sept. 11 capped another year of growth for Veritas at a time when most other large high-tech companies shrank. Veritas' revenue rose 24 percent last year to $1.49 billion.
Based on sales, Veritas ranks as world's seventh largest software company, ranking behind Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Computer Associates, PeopleSoft and Siebel Systems.
All of those software giants have built more widely known brands than Veritas, a factor that helps them to make even more sales, said industry analyst Ray Paquet of Gartner Inc. in Lowell, Mass.
"Your name certainly doesn't have to be on the tips of people's tongues to make lots of money but if you have good visibility, it can help you open a lot more doors," Paquet said.
It's a factor Bloom is acutely aware of -- and something he intends to change beginning at Veritas' customer conference in Dallas, which runs Sunday through Thursday.
"We have never really done a lot of hand-waving," Bloom said. "Now we want it be known that we are an industry powerhouse right up there with the Microsofts and Oracles of the world."
Bloom will be assisted by Jeremy Burton, who helped Oracle elevate its brand during the last few years.
A senior vice president at Oracle, Burton was recently lured away by Bloom to become Veritas' chief marketing officer. Bloom himself spent 14 years at Oracle, where he was one of CEO Larry Ellison's right-hand men.
Veritas reminds Bloom of Oracle during the days when most people didn't realize how crucial the database company's software had become.
"Oracle's software plays a role in running so many different things, but at one time it had a very underdeveloped brand," said Bloom, who left Oracle to become Veritas' chief executive nearly 18 months ago. "I see a similar DNA at Veritas."
Veritas is the dominant player in backup and recovery software, ending last year with a 41 percent share of a $1.6 billion market, according to Gartner. The company's market share rose from 31 percent at the end of 2000. Its closest competitors are IBM at 21 percent and Legato Systems at 8 percent, Gartner said.
Veritas also figures to face more competition from hardware giants like Sun Microsystems and EMC, which are invading the company's turf with their own software products.
Bloom views the challenge as further validation of Veritas' rising importance. He remains confident that Veritas latest annual report will be the last to include this line:
"Veritas Software has been called the most successful software company nobody has ever heard of."
Copyright 2002. Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
