* Infoblox names former NetScreen CEO Robert Thomas as president and CEO
Network appliance manufacturer Infoblox scored a coup last week with the announcement that it had hired Robert Thomas, former CEO of NetScreen Technologies, as its new president and CEO.
Infoblox sells appliances for handling several IPs, including DNS, Dynamic Host Control Protocol (DHCP), Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) and Remote Authentication Dial-in User Service (RADIUS). The five-year-old company has shipped 1,200 units to hundreds of corporate customers including W.W. Grainger, Discover Financial Services, Andarko and Amgen.
Thomas, a 25-year veteran of the network industry, is best known for growing NetScreen from a development-stage start-up into a successful public company with revenue exceeding $400 million. Juniper Networks acquired NetScreen in April 2004 for around $4 billion.
Thomas says he joined Infoblox because it targets a large market opportunity with its appliances and that the problems these appliances solve are well understood by potential customers.
“Everyone is grappling with issues of how to handle network identity and the need to preserve the integrity of the network,” Thomas says. “Infoblox is reducing complex identity management into a single appliance, which is easier to use and easier to manage.”
Thomas says he was impressed by the vision of Infoblox’ leadership team in terms of how network identity management will evolve and how it can be addressed using the appliance model.
“It always comes down to the people,” Thomas says. “The founders – particularly the CTO [Stuart Bailey] – really understands the network identity problem. The people here really believe this company is going to be wildly successful, and that’s a dynamic that we can build on.”
Thomas plans to expand Infobox’ sales and marketing efforts and to grow the company’s revenue. In particular, he plans to establish a channel sales strategy to complement the company’s direct sales. He also will pursue corporate partnerships, like the one Infoblox already has with Juniper.
“We need to build an infrastructure inside the company to accelerate our growth,” Thomas says.
Infoblox closed a $20 million round of venture financing earlier this year, bringing the start-up’s total financing to just over $30 million. Thomas says the company has enough money to finance the expansion of its sales efforts and has no plans to raise more money.
“We have enough cash to get to profitability,” he says.
Infoblox will release a new line of network appliances early next year, Thomas says.
“Our biggest challenge is convincing large companies to take a risk with a small company,” Thomas says. “But this is also an opportunity for us. When we compete against a Cisco or a Microsoft being a small company is a bit of an advantage if the product you’re selling is critical for the customer.”
