Celebrate Technology: Intelliden Wins Break-Though Unpatented Technology Award

Dale Hecht said he is committed to making Colorado a prosperous technology state.

We’ve been able to go out and attract top-tier business partners. We’re convinced you can build a very successful tech company right here in Colorado.

Hecht’s company, Intelliden, was founded in April 2000 to streamline the manual and error-prone configuration of large IP data networks. Intelliden R-Series, the company’s main operating system, works to automate what has long been a manual process. What we have done for data networks is analogous to what Windows does for a PC, said Hecht, CEO and president. Back in the 1980s if you had to do something on a PC, you had to use DOS and type in commands. Now, with Windows, it’s just point and click.

A user-friendly operating system allows network administrators to point and click on areas of concern, rather than having to remember thousands of complicated commands. The technology has won this year’s Celebrate Technology Breakthrough Unpatented Technology Award, though Hecht points out that his company has filed for 33 patents.

But with the U.S. Patent Office nearly four years behind in issuing patents, he might have a bit of a wait in front of him. R- Series does more than make the jobs of network administrators easier. The automation of the process allows for laymen to make changes to network configurations, and the system even records who made the changes and why-a handy feature for governmental regulations.

A data network is made up of routers, switches, firewalls and optics. Those devices that direct and pass Internet traffic around have, in the past, been manually configured.

Command Line Interface, or CLI, requires that users know the exact syntax and semantics for every device-its vendor (Cisco is an example), its type, its model and operating system. Thousands of possible commands, times thousands of possible combinations. It’s a lot to remember.

It’s very complicated and thus, very error-prone, Hecht said. It may create a situation that is not what you expected to happen. In 70 percent of manual configurations, you’re going to end up with some kind of error in the network.

Intelliden’s founders-Hecht, Chief Technology Officer Glen Tindal and Chief Marketing Officer Kevin Burns-decided to go after these areas of concern. All three have backgrounds in running large IP data networks, and got frustrated by the fact that those they were managing were not going to scale. Meaning there was no defined process, no clearly delineated set of instructions, to make manual changes to the network.

Intelliden R-Series is basically what we would call a heterogeneous control plan against all the different devices. A point and click will ‘turn on’ a service, and we handle all the commands, Hecht said. Everything we do is available through a user interface-a GUI (Graphical User Interface)-and a programmable interface-an API (Application Programming Interface). That’s how you create automation.

The 80 employees of Intelliden, the majority of which work at the Colorado Springs headquarters, are the reason for Intelliden’s success, he said. Some employees, both in sales and engineering, are scattered in offices throughout the country. Eight are in London, Intelliden’s only foreign office.

I love being in a startup environment. We have a disruptive technology creating a new market space, Hecht said. We’ve put together an incredible team; coming to work every day with these folks is really what’s exciting to me. I’m a starter by nature.

He was part of a startup in 1986. Pioneer Teletechnologies, a firm that built customer service and telemarketing centers, went from zero to 15,000 employees (and was generating $500 million in revenue) by 1992, when the company was acquired by MCI.

Several MCI executives are on the board of directors, and Hecht himself was the vice president of enterprise data and management services-building and managing one of the largest IP networks in the world.

Everything we’ve accomplished, from technology to marketing to the sales perspective, our team is a big part of that, he said. I think that’s the biggest thing that differentiates us.

Although Intelliden’s operating system was designed to streamline the configuration of Cisco Systems, Hecht said he admires the company. Cisco is a company I talk about a lot. It started in the early ’90s, and had disruptive technology from the hardware side, he said. Cisco did a lot of things right as far as its timing, being committed to being first in the marketplace, and has obviously been hugely successful.

Hecht earned his bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University of South Dakota and is a certified public accountant.

(Copyright 2004 Dolan Media Newswires)