IN DEPTH: TECHNOLOGY – Hard drive protection fuels growth at Centurion
St. Louis Business Journal | 07/22/05
Lene Johansen
Centurion Technologies Inc. recently launched an enhanced edition of its hard drive configuration protection software, just as tech giants such as Microsoft are moving into Centurion's corner of the market.
Technology support staffs have struggled for years to protect workstations in multi-user environments, such as schools, from users' intended and unintended changes in hard drive configurations. Fenton-based Centurion's original approach was to physically lock down the hard drive with a key, a solution the company still sells to libraries and military installations. The company launched a software version at the beginning of 2001.
With Centurion's recently released MacShield software, the Mac version of its DriveShield product, any changes made by the user during a session are deleted from the computer on reboot and the system's original configuration is restored. Traditional approaches to the problem of unwanted configuration changes include locking down the user's ability to make changes, or keeping a pristine copy, or image, of the system, which can be re-installed on demand.
For Gary Stanowski, technical services manager at the Francis Howell School District, not locking down user's access to the system was an important factor in the district's purchase decision.
"It is important that the teachers and students learn how to use the full operating system environment," Stanowski said. "Our teachers won't let computers into their labs without Centurion's software." The school district has used Centurion software for about three years. "We have not seen any viruses or malware (malicious software) for three years," Stanowski said.
Re-imaging, or copying a pristine duplicate back onto a computer system, is time-consuming compared to using Centurion's software. Webster University's academic technical coordinator, Christine Arteaga, said it would take one person four hours every other week to restore just one of the university's labs around the Country. All of Webster's 1,000 to 1,500 multi-user machines run either DriveShield or MacShield.
Centurion estimates a $314 savings per year on total cost of ownership for a desktop system, and $342 for a laptop in an education setting when using the DriveShield technology. Richard Kaestner, a consultant for the Washington, D.C.-based Consortium for School Networking, said the formula Centurion used for its estimates is conservative.
Centurion has 24 employees and projects $3.5 million in revenue for 2005, although Vice President Keith Rickman expects the actual numbers to be higher. About 70 percent of Centurion's sales are in the education sector, but the company has branched out into the corporate and retail markets as well. Currently 20 percent of sales are to the corporate market, and 10 percent in retail. Centurion is negotiating with AOL to distribute a version of its software to AOL users; the company is competing with large players like Symantec and McAfee for the AOL contract.
Other organizations that use Centurion's software include NATO, the U.S. Departments of Homeland Security and Defense, and Gulfstream Jets. The U.S. Olympic Committee used the software in the Olympic village during the 2004 summer games in Greece.
Centurion is adapting a special version of its software for financial institutions in cooperation with an undisclosed bank.
ljohansen@bizjournals.com
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