VERITAS Software
Encyclopedia
Veritas Software Corp. was an international software company that was founded in 1983 as Tolerant Systems, renamed Veritas Software Corp. in 1989, and merged with Symantec
in 2005. It was headquartered in Mountain View, California. The company specialized in storage management software including the first commercial journaling file system
, VxFS
, VxVM
, VCS
, the personal/small office backup software Backup Exec
and the popular enterprise backup
software NetBackup
. Veritas Record Now was the first worldwide popular CD recording software, due to groundbreaking high reliability (a notable achievement at the time that CD writers were a new technology), an easy user interface, and support from hardware manufacturers. Veritas was listed on the S&P 500
and the NASDAQ-100
under the VRTS ticker symbol.
based on the idea of "shoe-box" building blocks. The shoe box consisted of a OS processor, running a version of Unix
called TX, and on which applications ran, and an I/O processor, running a Real Time Executive, developed by Tolerant, called RTE: both processors were 320xx processors. The system was marketed as the "Eternity Series."
The TX software gained a level of fault-tolerance through check-pointing technology. Applications needed to be fortified with this check-pointing to allow roll-back of the application on another processor if a hardware failure occurred. Tolerant also developed a forerunner of today's RAID systems by incorporating a journaling file system
and multiple copies or N-plexing the disk drive content.
The company got out of the hardware business in 1989 and became Veritas Software by using this earlier work in journaled file systems as the basis for a new line of products for Windows NT
and Unix systems. Mark Leslie joined the newly formed software company as CEO at that time. He chose the name VERITAS in honor of Harvard, his alma mater.
announced their plans for a merger in a deal valued at $13.5 billion. It was the largest announced software industry merger to date. On June 24, 2005, Veritas and Symantec
shareholders voted to approve the merger. On July 2, 2005, Symantec and Veritas finalized the merger and the resulting company has retained the name Symantec.
Symantec
Symantec Corporation is the largest maker of security software for computers. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and is a Fortune 500 company and a member of the S&P 500 stock market index.-History:...
in 2005. It was headquartered in Mountain View, California. The company specialized in storage management software including the first commercial journaling file system
Journaling file system
A journaling file system is a file system that keeps track of the changes that will be made in a journal before committing them to the main file system...
, VxFS
VERITAS File System
The VERITAS File System, , is an extent-based file system. It was originally developed by VERITAS Software. Through an OEM agreement, VxFS is used as the primary filesystem of the HP-UX operating system...
, VxVM
Veritas Volume Manager
The Veritas Volume Manager, VVM or VxVM is a proprietary logical volume manager from Veritas . It is available for Windows, AIX, Solaris, Linux, and HP-UX. A modified version is bundled with HP-UX as its built-in volume manager...
, VCS
Veritas Cluster Server
Veritas Cluster Server is a High-availability cluster software, for Unix, Linux and Microsoft Windows computer systems, created by Veritas Software...
, the personal/small office backup software Backup Exec
Backup Exec
Backup Exec is proprietary backup software currently developed by Symantec. Backup Exec has a long history of being sold from one company to another. Its earliest roots stretch back to the early 1980s when Maynard Electronics created a bundle of software drivers to help sell their tape drive...
and the popular enterprise backup
Backup
In information technology, a backup or the process of backing up is making copies of data which may be used to restore the original after a data loss event. The verb form is back up in two words, whereas the noun is backup....
software NetBackup
NetBackup
Veritas NetBackup is an enterprise level heterogeneous backup and recovery suite. It provides cross-platform backup functionality to a large variety of Windows, UNIX and Linux operating systems....
. Veritas Record Now was the first worldwide popular CD recording software, due to groundbreaking high reliability (a notable achievement at the time that CD writers were a new technology), an easy user interface, and support from hardware manufacturers. Veritas was listed on the S&P 500
S&P 500
The S&P 500 is a free-float capitalization-weighted index published since 1957 of the prices of 500 large-cap common stocks actively traded in the United States. The stocks included in the S&P 500 are those of large publicly held companies that trade on either of the two largest American stock...
and the NASDAQ-100
NASDAQ-100
The NASDAQ-100 is a stock market index of 100 of the largest non-financial companies listed on the NASDAQ. It is a modified capitalization-weighted index. The companies' weights in the index are based on their market capitalizations, with certain rules capping the influence of the largest components...
under the VRTS ticker symbol.
Origin
Tolerant Systems was a company founded in 1983 by Eli Alon and Dale Shipley (both from Intel) to build fault-tolerant computer systemsFault-tolerant computer systems
Fault-tolerant computer systems are systems designed around the concepts of fault tolerance. In essence, they have to be able to keep working to a level of satisfaction in the presence of faults.- Types of fault tolerance :...
based on the idea of "shoe-box" building blocks. The shoe box consisted of a OS processor, running a version of Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
called TX, and on which applications ran, and an I/O processor, running a Real Time Executive, developed by Tolerant, called RTE: both processors were 320xx processors. The system was marketed as the "Eternity Series."
The TX software gained a level of fault-tolerance through check-pointing technology. Applications needed to be fortified with this check-pointing to allow roll-back of the application on another processor if a hardware failure occurred. Tolerant also developed a forerunner of today's RAID systems by incorporating a journaling file system
Journaling file system
A journaling file system is a file system that keeps track of the changes that will be made in a journal before committing them to the main file system...
and multiple copies or N-plexing the disk drive content.
The company got out of the hardware business in 1989 and became Veritas Software by using this earlier work in journaled file systems as the basis for a new line of products for Windows NT
Windows NT
Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. It was a powerful high-level-language-based, processor-independent, multiprocessing, multiuser operating system with features comparable to Unix. It was intended to complement...
and Unix systems. Mark Leslie joined the newly formed software company as CEO at that time. He chose the name VERITAS in honor of Harvard, his alma mater.
Early History
- Initial Business Model: Veritas started out with unique relationship with AT&T to provide the file ( Veritas File Manager - VxFS) and disk management (Veritas Volume Manager - VxVM) software for its UNIX operating system, and to jointly market and support the products to the System OEMS (Sun, HP, etc.). The OEM model provided royalties to Veritas when the OEM shipped its products to end users.
- Public Offering: On December 9, 1993 the company had its initial public offering (IPO), selling 16 million shares to the public, and valuing the company at $64 million.
Accelerated Growth and Acquisitions
At the end of 1996 Veritas had revenues of $36 million.- OpenVision Acquisition: In 1997 the company acquired OpenVision, another public company of the same size, and thus entered the backup business. Although the company only retained $20 million of OpenVisions 1996 base, it completed the 1997 year at $120 million.
- Seagate NSMG Acquisition: The company achieved $200 million in 1998, and in 1999 acquired the backup business from Seagate Software, which was also approximately $200 million in 1998. In 1999 the combined company achieved revenues of $700 million, and became the undisputed leader in the Storage Management Software industry. In 2000 the company achieved revenues of $1.2 billion, was added to the S&P 500, became a Fortune 1000 company, and became the tenth largest software company in the world by revenues, and third largest by market capitalization.
- Internet Bubble: In 2001 the industry went through a major downturn as the internet bubble burst. Nonetheless the company was able to achieve revenue growth of 25% to $1.5 billion, and operating margins of 25%.
- Growth of 42X: Through this accelerated growth, Veritas went from a $36 million dollar company to a $1.5 billion dollar company, a growth multiple of 42X in five years.
Unique human resources policies
- Offices—Not Cubicles: In contrast with most high-technology companies, which put most workers in cubicles, and a few—notably Intel and Hewlett-PackardHewlett-PackardHewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
—who put all employees, from the CEO on down, in cubicles, Veritas had a policy of putting all engineers, technical writers, and other "creative" workers in offices with doors that could be closed to exclude outside conversations. Most such workers that lasted six months got offices with outside windows. - No Secrets: In most Silicon-Valley companies, important decisions take a long time to filter down to most employees, even those who design the company's new products. Veritas had a more egalitarian approach: every employee was, by SECUnited States Securities and Exchange CommissionThe U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is a federal agency which holds primary responsibility for enforcing the federal securities laws and regulating the securities industry, the nation's stock and options exchanges, and other electronic securities markets in the United States...
definition, an "insider". Every week, there was a company meeting in the lunchroom, where the CEO, Mark Leslie, told all employees the company secrets, including quarterly results, annual results, upcoming products, experimental projects, and new contracts. The disadvantage of making all employees insiders is that every employee was a potential inside traderInsider tradingInsider trading is the trading of a corporation's stock or other securities by individuals with potential access to non-public information about the company...
. For this reason, the SEC required five blackout periods when employees could not buy or sell Veritas stock: one month before each quarterly or annual reportAnnual reportAn annual report is a comprehensive report on a company's activities throughout the preceding year. Annual reports are intended to give shareholders and other interested people information about the company's activities and financial performance...
was issued. In 1995-96, Veritas was a very small company with fewer than 100 employees. Its small size made the secrecy policy possible. A few years later, Veritas had expanded 20-fold, so this policy became impossible to maintain.
Acquisitions
- April 1997 - Acquired OpenVision Technologies. This included NetBackupNetBackupVeritas NetBackup is an enterprise level heterogeneous backup and recovery suite. It provides cross-platform backup functionality to a large variety of Windows, UNIX and Linux operating systems....
. - May 1999 - Acquired the Network and Storage Management Group of Seagate SoftwareSeagate SoftwareSeagate Software was an international software corporation headquartered in Scotts Valley, California, United States. It was a majority owned subsidiary of Seagate Technology, the largest independent disc drive and related components company in the world....
. This included Backup ExecBackup ExecBackup Exec is proprietary backup software currently developed by Symantec. Backup Exec has a long history of being sold from one company to another. Its earliest roots stretch back to the early 1980s when Maynard Electronics created a bundle of software drivers to help sell their tape drive...
. - August 2003 - Acquired Isreal's Precise Software SolutionsPrecise SoftwarePrecise Software Solutions is an Israeli-American company that develops Application performance management software products.-Early history:...
, one of the Application Performance ManagementApplication Performance ManagementApplication performance management, or APM, refers to the discipline within systems management that focuses on monitoring and managing the performance and service availability of software applications....
(APM) leaders, for about $400 million in cash and 7.4 million shares of its stock for a total of about $609 million.
Merger with Symantec
On December 16, 2004, Veritas and SymantecSymantec
Symantec Corporation is the largest maker of security software for computers. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and is a Fortune 500 company and a member of the S&P 500 stock market index.-History:...
announced their plans for a merger in a deal valued at $13.5 billion. It was the largest announced software industry merger to date. On June 24, 2005, Veritas and Symantec
Symantec
Symantec Corporation is the largest maker of security software for computers. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and is a Fortune 500 company and a member of the S&P 500 stock market index.-History:...
shareholders voted to approve the merger. On July 2, 2005, Symantec and Veritas finalized the merger and the resulting company has retained the name Symantec.