Network World Newsletter: Dave Kearns on Windows Networking
by Dave Kearns
October 16, 2002
While I was at Microsoft Exchange Conference 2002 last week I took the opportunity to spend some time
with two companies whose products are nothing but spectacular. They do one thing and they do that thing very
well. UltraBac Software makes an excellent back-up/archive utility for small to midsized networks, while
ScriptLogic markets a specialized scripting tool for your network.
The vendors are about as far apart geographically as two U.S. companies can be - UltraBac is in Bellevue,
Wash. and ScriptLogic in Pompano Beach, Fla. But in speaking to both companies' CEOs, the story they tell is
remarkably similar: they were involved with other products, got drawn into the Windows networking world and
were aghast that the tools they were familiar with weren't available to Windows network managers.
UltraBac's Morgan Edwards came from the minicomputer world where he successfully marketed back-up and
archival solutions. In the early 1990s, he found his clients moving to Windows networking and clamoring for
the same sort of archival utilities they were used to in a minicomputer environment. So Edwards launched
UltraBac to provide that service. The cornerstone of UltraBac is its reliability, according to the CEO. "Too
often," he said (and I certainly agree), "users don't find out that their back-up 'solution' doesn't work until
they're faced with recovering from a disaster." We'll be taking a closer look at UltraBac in coming weeks, but
you can jump over to http://www.ultrabac.com/ right now
to preview the product.
ScriptLogic founder Brian Styles was a NetWare administrator and consultant. Like UltraBac's Edwards,
Styles found that as the 1990s progressed, his customers and clients were moving more towards Windows
networking. Styles became frustrated when all the tricks he had used in NetWare logon scripts were no longer
available to clients of NT servers. But rather than simply whine about it, he did something about it.
What he did was create ScriptLogic, an application that initially provided some drive mappings, printer setups
and other NetWare-legacy type setup. But Brian's a tinkerer. When he gets the bit in his teeth, he writes code
until all hours just to add "a little more functionality." I watched what ScriptLogic could do, and I know that
NetWare managers would want to add that functionality to their networks. We'll also be looking more closely at
ScriptLogic in coming weeks, but you can sneak a peek by going to http://www.scriptlogic.com/eng/home.asp and
browsing around.
I looked at other companies' products too and we'll get in depth on a bunch of them in upcoming issues
but I wanted to draw your attention to these two companies that fit my definition of a good software company:
they saw a need, they filled that need and they continue to improve their product. They do one thing, and they
do it very well.
Network World Newsletter October 16, 2002
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