The Salesforce.com of Security

Qualys, the leading provider of on demand vulnerability management and policy compliance solutions, helps organizations of all sizes discover vulnerabilities, ensure regulatory compliance and prioritize remediation according to business risk — with no infrastructure to deploy or manage. QualysGuard, the company’s flagship service, conducts automated security audits and provides the quickest route to neutralize worms and other emerging threats.

Software as a Service (SaaS) continues to be a trend, as big domains get shifted over to the ASP model. Qualys is one such proponent of SaaS, following the footsteps of its larger and more successful brethren – Salesforce.com and Webex. Qualys counts amongst its customers DuPont, Hershey Foods, eBay, BASF, Hewlett-Packard, Standard Chartered Bank, and most recently, Microsoft, and has as an advisor Howard Schmidt, Former Special Adviser for Cyberspace Security, the White House.

The CEO, Philippe Courtout is a veteran captain of the software waters, having taken Verity (NASDAQ: VRTY) public in 1995, and having sold Signio to Verisign for $700 Million in 2000. Verity was the leader in enterprise search, and Signio’s technology today provides the plumbing for Verisign’s electronic payment system. Verisign handles about 30% of all internet transactions in the US, which amounts to roughly $100 Million per day. Pretty impressive background.

Once again, I would give an A+ to both the market opportunity and the leadership, and since the fish are eating the worms, looks like a good solution attacking a real problem!