The Experiment
The birth of Centurion Technologies started as an experiment and has developed into a new security segment. Centurion’s founder, Ron Wells, was asked by a fellow scientist and inventor to investigate how they might protect a computer’s hard drive from corruption, changes and other mistakes that negatively affect the operation of a computer. Ron determined this challenge was too interesting to pass up. So while Ron was still completing his degree in electrical engineering at the University of Missouri - Rolla, he set out to research, design and develop the necessary circuitry and driver applications to actually make this dream a reality.
The Outcome
After a year of testing and modifying, the entrepreneurs reached a set of conclusions regarding the experiment:
- The drive protection intent of the idea was possible
- The idea could be successfully engineered and reproduced
- The engineering and driver development structure they designed worked without fail, every time!
Let’s Go to Market!
The next step for the inventors was to look for capital to bring this discovery to market. The inventors already knew their idea would be extremely valuable to any multi-user workstation environment. From 1990 to 1996 they endured the process of gathering personal and closely related funding to move the product into production. In 1996, Centurion Technologies was incorporated while also receiving a patent for CenturionGuard®. The dream had become reality. This unique blend of hardware and software driver technology came together to provide a set of benefits that were impossible to ignore in the education and multi-user environment.
Growth
In 1996, the company had educational, library and government customers in five U.S. states. Today, Centurion sells award-winning hard drive protection products in all 50 U.S. states and in countries across the globe, including: Asia, Europe and all of the Americas.
In 2002, Drive Disabler™, a specialized product developed in conjunction with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for the library market, was invented and released to disable and protect user selected data drives. Centurion’s hardware production grew to the point where it was necessary to outsource to two manufacturing partners and the company continues to grow in this area. A software version, DriveShield™ for Windows was also introduced in 2002, and MacShield™ for Macintosh OS 8, 9, and 10 was introduced in 2003.
In 2004, the advanced CompuGuard series was released to lead the industry ion innovations and ease of use with the client-side protection of CornerStone and remote management capabilities of Control Center. The latest and most advanced Macintosh protection on the market, MacShield™ Enhanced Edition, a collaborative effort with Apple, was released in Spring 2005.
Today
Today, organizations and institutions using any or all of Centurion’s products are receiving the following benefits:
- Additional protection against virus attacks
- Protection from malicious or enterprising users
- Protection from mistakes when inexperienced users delete critical files
- Protection from permanent damage by unwanted and harmful downloads from the Internet
- Reduction in maintenance time.
- Reduction/Elimination of the need for system re-imaging