Interlink Networks
Computer networks have transformed the way we work and communicate. But as organizations worldwide have discovered, if local area networks (LANS) are powerful and efficient, they're also vulnerable to unauthorized access.
In the 1990s, the University of Michigan joined with Merit Network, Inc., a nonprofit corporation owned by Michigan's four-year public universities, to develop a security system for its network customers. The result was an innovative new tool for network authentication, authorization and accounting. In 2000, realizing the technology's broad commercial applications, UM Tech Transfer worked with Merit Network to launch an Ann Arbor-based start-up company known as Interlink Networks. The following year, Michael Klein, an experienced local entrepreneur, was recruited to expand the potential of Interlink's dial-up security access and authentication systems.
Klein, who had recently sold his own software firm, was attracted by a combination of factors: "It takes a lot of interconnecting pieces to build a successful company. With Interlink, all those pieces were in place. Proven, late-stage technology gave us market traction. We also had skilled technologists and strong investors. So it was really a question of building the management team, then positioning, marketing, selling, and moving the product line into the next generation."
And that's exactly what Klein and his associates have done in the past year. Under their leadership, Interlink recently entered the realm of wireless security, one of the fastest-growing markets in communications. Secure.XS® , the company's new wireless LAN security software, has already generated ten separate agreements with such equipment manufacturing giants as Hewlett-Packard and Siemens--and more deals are on the way.
Printed from: http://www.techtransfer.umich.edu/news_events/success_stories/story_21.php