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Utah-based AccessData Quietly Enters Ranks of World’s Most Respected Digital Investigations Companies
LINDON, Utah – (BUSINESS WIRE) – Perhaps not surprisingly, some of the biggest growth industries of the modern age involve cyber security and cybercrime, as well as the discovery and analysis of large volumes of digital information. Quietly and without fanfare, a company in one of Lindon’s business parkways is having a major impact in this area and on the effectiveness of information security teams, cyber investigators and litigation support personnel around the world. With presence in San Francisco, Houston and Sterling, Va., as well as London, Sydney, China and the Middle East, AccessData has become the solution provider of choice for law enforcement ranging from local agencies to the Department of Defense and beyond. Moreover, many of America’s most prominent corporations, law firms and security service providers use AccessData products to address such business needs as e-discovery and incident response.
AccessData Group has pioneered digital investigations and litigation support for more than 25 years and is currently on a major growth upswing. Fueled by the success of its court-cited digital investigations technologies, along with its rapidly expanding cyber security solutions and litigation support solutions, AccessData has grown from 73 to more than 450 employees in the past five years.
“AccessData has always focused more on engineering and building great software than on promoting it. Our allegiance, first and foremost, is to our users. Word-of-mouth is our most powerful marketing tool,” commented Brian Kenney, president and chief operating officer of AccessData. “We look not only at what our customers need, but also at the changing landscape of digital investigations. We seek to stay one step ahead of the market – which often means anticipating what’s next in global security, e-discovery, forensics, legal review and case management.”
AccessData, which currently has more than 130,000 users worldwide, focuses its product development in three key areas:
Forensics, which includes recovering, decrypting and investigating information held on computers, mobile phones and other digital devices;
e-Discovery and Litigation Support, covering a wide range of data collection, culling, processing, analysis, review and presentation services for law firms and corporate legal departments; and
Cyber Security / Incident Response, incorporating solutions for detecting, analyzing, repelling and remediating internal and external attacks on critical computing networks.
Early in 2012, AccessData released a fully re-engineered version of its popular litigation support software Summation to widespread acclaim. Its Forensic Toolkit(R), which holds the largest share of the global forensics market, also saw a major release and several dot releases that introduced improvements and advanced features, such as industry-first malware analysis capability and data visualization to facilitate timeline and social network analysis. With these moves and the release of the second version of the flagship cyber security solution known as CIRT (Cyber Intelligence and Response Technology), AccessData seeks to extend its impressive five-year revenue growth record of 114% CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate). While many AccessData clients, by the nature of their activities, are not able to comment on their use of the company’s technologies, several have spoken about the importance of AccessData to their operations. As Rob Draper, vice president and principal of Global Legal Discovery, explains, “We see tremendous value in our clients choosing to standardize internal processes; this can be accomplished in large part by utilizing the AccessData product portfolio. It allows us to serve our clients with on-demand discovery solutions through a managed services environment or a full-scale enterprise implementation. We’re able to leverage their industry-leading processes to help our clients reduce the risks associated with data management for all litigation types. The processing and analysis engine allows our clients to preview data essential to a variety of business problems, including legal actions and internal investigations, prior to full-blown and costly e-discovery efforts. We continue to witness innovation that is designed to streamline processes and rapidly identify key data, without the need to disrupt business practices. For us, it is a big part of building internal discovery solutions for our corporate clients.”
Peter Coons, senior vice president for D4, LLC, stated, “Having AccessData as part of our overall product portfolio gives us complete coverage and significant flexibility to address many unique client requirements. Beyond the value of AD’s technology, the team there has also proven to be strong and ambitious partners.”
AccessData continued to add talent to its leadership team in 2012 as well. Brad Townsend joined the organization as the chief financial officer, after a successful M&A of Mobile Armor to Trend Micro and brings with him experience from a number of successful technical startups. Dan Chapman, most recently with Ricoh and Thompson Reuters came on to head the litigation services arm of the business. The company has also embarked on an aggressive push to increase its domestic resale channel by creating a team headed by Chad Gailey who joined AccessData after stints with CA Technologies and BMC software in similar roles. AccessData is very excited about the opportunity to continue its growth in the multi-billion dollar services arena.
“We’re very proud of our recent success, particularly our employee growth in our hometown,” said Kamey. “More than half of our staff in Lindon is comprised of software development professionals. Moreover, our entire development staff is here in the U.S. We’re committed to leveraging the skills of our domestic workforce.”
Such robust growth has also led to the company’s rapid expansion into new office space in order to accommodate client-directed advancements and support. Simultaneous projects at AccessData’s corporate headquarters, as well as two of its primary locations, will culminate in several new facilities, including an expandable 45,000 sq./ft., 170-employee location in Lindon, which includes a state-of-the-art 5,000 sq./ft. training lab.
Additionally, a new space at the company’s San Francisco location will provide a 12,000 sq./ft. facility in the heart of the city’s financial district. This location will house 60+ employees and provide an ultramodern training room with an impressive view of historic California Street.
AccessData’s Houston, Texas-based sales hub will move to a Class A 35,000 sq./ft. facility in the Willow Brook area that includes a high-tech training facility and an executive briefing center. The location will hold more than 100 employees and includes a secure, custom-built professional services lab. The lab will accommodate AccessData’s growing Litigation Support Services team and provide increased capacity for the company’s hosted online review platform, Summation Pro. The facility will also expand AccessData’s electronic data processing capacity.
The company’s annual users’ conference, ADUC, just opened 2013 registration with early-bird pricing. More information can be found at the following link: www.AD-Users.com.
