Teradici Corp.

The story of how Teradici chose a product to develop is almost as impressive as the product itself. About six years ago, the founders, with backgrounds in the computer-chip industry, were looking for a tough problem to solve and took the question to some of the biggest computer makers around. The problem these giants were most interested in was one that had been kicking around for some 15 years without a decent solution.

The idea is to take all the computers in, say, a large office and move them to a central server room. What’s left on workers’ desks is just what’s necessary for human interface: the screen, keyboard, mouse, etc. Done right, computer users wouldn’t be able to tell the difference and IT could reap huge efficiency and security benefits. No more sensitive data sitting on hundreds of different hard drives; no more journeys around the office installing new software one machine at a time.

The brains at Teradici worked out a solution together with their partners (companies such as IBM, Dell, Fujitsu, Samsung and VMware), which have gradually become customers since the first marketable chip was ready in 2007. The number of chips sold is now in the hundreds of thousands, according to president and CEO Dan Cordingly. The company does not disclose revenues, but Cordingly says they’re in the millions and have more than doubled since last year, although the company is not profitable yet.

As one of our panellists explains, “They went to their customers and said, ‘What do you need? What would work for you?’ Then the customers helped them develop it.”
“It’s funny how that’s revolutionary,” quips another: “Ask the customer what they want.”