Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

Zeus, which is leading the development of innovative application traffic management software, is currently so highly regarded that some analysts are tipping HP and even Cisco Systems as potential buyers.

A half a billion dollar swoop by NASDAQ-quoted Juniper Networks Inc for Peribit Networks and Redline Networks has raised temperatures in the entire traffic management segment.

For Zeus, the wheel has turned full circle. Once a young turk, it now finds itself cast in the role of veteran performer in a relatively young technology sector in which there is staggering potential for growth.

In the event of an acquisition, many seasoned observers will argue that glory is about a decade overdue for this ‘overnight sensation.’ Everyone assumed not long after the company’s emergence in 1996 as a vendor of web server software that co-founders Adam Twiss and Damian Reeves would exit with a fistful of dollars via an acquisition or IPO.

In the event neither happened and Zeus was persuaded – ill-advisedly – to saddle itself with the 33,143 sq ft former Ionica headquarters building at St John’s Innovation Park.

It was cruelly nicknamed the Titanic as first Ionica sunk and then Zeus floundered before grabbing the lifebelt of a move to humbler surroundings at the nearby Jeffreys Building – minus Twiss, who moved on to become CEO of Saviso Consulting.

Just as landlord St John’s College is remarketing the impressive but empty building as St John’s House – and already has two interested parties – so Zeus has also recovered its sense of equilibrium and purpose. It is now a much more mature business and its Zeus Extensible Traffic Manager (ZTXM) software is earning market validation with some major players.

Now both Cisco Systems – tipped as the next big potential predator to stride into the traffic management space – and HP, which is known to be on the look-out for hot technology, are on the prowl. They are believed to view the infant sector as a potential goldmine.

While Zeus argues that it isn’t touting for a deal, proposed updates to its technology this year are serving only to make it an even more attractive proposition.

It also has financial strength. Earlier this year it secured an additional $6 million in funding to add to the $17.7m already garnered from institutional investors and the company is forecast to break even early next year.

Resilience can be added to the Zeus CV. It did well to ride out the dot.com boom and bust. It now powers more than one million websites across the world and is preparing to take the global web-enabling software market by storm.

Virgin Holidays’ customers using the tour operator’s website are already getting a faster, more reliable service thanks to Zeus’ ZXTM software – a powerful, fault-tolerant and high-performance load balancing solution to improve the overall resiliency, security and performance of web-based applications.

HP is a Zeus partner, of course. Others are IBM, Sun Microsystems, Dell, Intel, AMD and Qualcomm, while customers include eBay, BT, Cable and Wireless, Yahoo, NTT Docomo, AT & T, Qualcomm, NEC Biglobe, Virgin Holidays, Wells Fargo and Play.com.

American appetite for Cambridge businesses has been voracious.

Since last autumn, Trigenix has been taken by Qualcomm, Linx Printing Technologies by Danaher Corporation, Active Hotels by priceline.com, Meridica by Pfizer, Alpha-mosaic by Broadcom, Astron by Donnelley and Apama by Progress Software.