Intelliden stems network crises.

• Author: Taylor, Mike
• Position: HighTech Coloradobiz - Company Profile

DALE HECHT SPENT MOST OF THE '90S AS A VICE president for MCI, building and managing one of the largest Internet protocol networks in the world. The biggest application for an IP network back then was e-mail, and Hecht oversaw a system that handled 3 million e-mail messages per day.

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Times have changed, and these days a smooth-running IP network infrastructure is not only vital for a company's e-mail system, but for overall efficiency in hundreds of functions for just about every large company.

"We've had financial-services companies tell us that when their network goes down it costs them a million dollars a minute," says Hecht, 41. "A wireless company told us they had 24,000 retail locations that went out of commission for almost 30 hours one time, so they couldn't install new orders, they couldn't do any customer service and couldn't sell any phones."

Recognizing the increasingly critical role of IP network infrastructure for businesses--especially large firms--Hecht left MCI in April 2000, and along with Kevin Burns and Glen Tindal, both key players in technology for MCI, they formed Intelliden, a software company that created an entirely new space in the IP networking field that Hecht calls "configuration management."

Rounding out the management group, John Gerdelman was brought in to serve as Intelliden's chairman. His background includes serving as president and CEO of AboveNet Inc. and as president of MCI's global network and systems division.

In February 2002, after two years of research and development, Colorado Springsbased Intelliden launched what Hecht calls the industry's first management software suite designed to help companies address network infrastructure crises stemming from the daily manual configuration of millions of network devices. Intelliden landed its first customer, British Telecom, in July 2002. And in late October 2003, the company signed the Royal Netherlands Army, which sought out Intelliden to bolster its communications...