Quest Software


Quest Software, also known as Quest, is a privately held software company headquartered in Aliso Viejo, California, United States with 53 offices in 24 countries. The company was founded in 1987.
The company is known for Toad, a product used by database professionals, in addition to other offerings for Microsoft Azure cloud management, software as a service, security, workforce mobility, data-driven insight, and backup and recovery.
Quest Software was acquired by Dell in 2012, for $2.36 billion, to form Dell Software. In June 2016, Dell announced the sale of their software division, which included the Quest, SonicWall, and One Identity businesses, to Francisco Partners and Elliott Management Corporation. On October 31, 2016, the sale was finalized.
On November 1, 2016, the sale of Dell Software to Francisco Partners and Elliott Management Corporation was completed, and the company re-launched as Quest Software. On June 1, 2017, One Identity was announced as an independent brand, but still remains part of the Quest family of businesses. One Identity tools consist of identity governance, access management, and privilege management.
In 2018, Quest announced the acquisition of Metalogix, offering SharePoint, OneDrive for Business and Office 365 migration and management tools.

History

Quest Software (QSFT) - 1987 to 2012

Quest Software was founded in 1987 in Newport Beach, California, with a line of high-availability and middleware products for HP Multi-Programming Executive. In 1995, Vinny Smith joined the company, which at the time had 35 employees and $9.5 million in revenue. The following year, Quest entered the database management market with an Oracle SQL database tuning product. In 1997, Quest opened an office in the United Kingdom. Doug Garn joined Quest as the vice president of sales in 1998. That same year, Quest added offices in Germany and Australia, and Smith became CEO. In October 1998, Quest acquired TOAD. On August 13, 1999, Quest Software went public. That same year, the company acquired Stat, an application change management company.
In 2000, Quest acquired Foglight, a monitoring product and opened new offices in France and the Netherlands. At the end of 2000, the company had 1,400 employees and $167 million in revenue. The following year, Quest acquired Fastlane Technologies and entered the Microsoft management market with a new product for the IBM DB2 database. In 2002, a Quest office opened in Japan and the company acquired Sitraka, a Java diagnostic services company. In 2003, Quest Software entered the Microsoft SQL Server market, and IDC named Quest number one in distributed database management software. The next year, Quest acquired Aelita Software to gain Microsoft infrastructure management capabilities, and opened new offices in Asia, specifically in Singapore, Korea, and China. Also in 2004, Quest won Microsoft's Global ISV of the Year Award, and Gartner named Quest number one in application management. Doug Garn became president of Quest Software in 2005. That same year, the company acquired Imceda Software, and Vintela for identity management. At the end of 2005, Quest had 2,750 employees worldwide and revenues of $476 million.
In 2006, Quest Software began offering fixes for Microsoft SharePoint. That same year, Quest Software acquired ScriptLogic, and Charonware s.r.o from the Czech Republic. Charonware made CASE Studio2, and after being acquired, Quest folded it into the TOAD Data Modeler product. Also in 2006, Quest Software was ranked number one by Gartner for application management in North America, and number one in database development and management by IDC. In 2007, Quest was awarded Microsoft's Global ISV of the Year Award again. The company also began to focus on virtualization by acquiring Provision Networks, a desktop virtualization management company. Doug Garn became CEO and president, and Vinny Smith became executive chairman of Quest in 2008. That same year, Quest Software purchased Vizioncore as an entry into the server virtualization market, and PassGo Technologies. In 2009, Quest Software acquired PacketTrap, a network monitoring company, and Alan Fudge became vice president of sales.
Voelcker was acquired by Quest in 2010, adding to their identity management offerings. Surgient, a private cloud automation company, was also acquired in 2010. That same year Quest Software was ranked in the leaders' quadrant by Gartner for application performance monitoring. In 2011, Quest Software acquired BakBone Software, e-DMZ, R emoteScan, Symlabs, ChangeBASE, vKernel, and BiTKOO. Vinny Smith became CEO and chairman that year, and Doug Garn became vice chairman. On September 28, 2012, Dell announced it had completed the acquisition of Quest Software.

Dell Software - 2012 to October 2016

On March 5, 2012, John Swainson became president of Dell Software. Previously, Swainson was senior advisor to Silver Lake Partners, a global private equity firm. Prior to Silver Lake, he was CEO and director of CA Inc. from early 2005 through 2009. The purpose of forming the new group was to build on Dell's software capabilities in systems management, security, data protection and workspace management, and provide more competitive server, storage, networking, and end user computing solutions and services.
In 2012, Dell announced the acquisition completion of SonicWALL, a network security business, and AppAssure, a security software maker.

Quest - November 2016 to present

On November 1, 2016, Francisco Partners and Elliott Management completed the purchase of Dell Software, and the company re-launched itself as Quest Software, known in the marketplace as Quest. On June 1, 2017, One Identity was announced as an independent brand, but remains part of the Quest family of businesses. One Identity products consist of services for identity governance, access management, and privilege management. On June 29, 2018, Quest acquired Metalogix Software extending their Microsoft Platform Management business offerings by extending their capabilities to further support SharePoint, SharePoint Online, and OneDrive for Business.

Company overview

Headquarters and locations

Quest Software is headquartered in Aliso Viejo, California and is a global company. A few key locations around the globe are: Columbus, Ohio; Halifax, Canada; Kanata, Canada; Saint-Petersburg, Russia; Cork, Ireland; Zhuhai, China; Veracruz, Panama and São Paulo, Brazil.

History of Quest brand

The following table includes the listing and the timeline of Quest Software's major acquisitions of other companies since 2000.
Company AcquiredYear of Completion of AcquisitionPriceCompany NotesReference
TOADOct 1998Add productivity software for database developers, DBAs, and analytics
Hacienda Foglight SoftwareJan 2000$125 Million
Client/Server Software SolutionsApr 2000
MessageWiseMay 2000$12 millionExchange availability
FastLane TechnologiesAug 2000$100 MillionEntered the Microsoft management market
RevealNetSep 2001$10 MillionKnowledge Base and Code Formatter for Oracle SQL and PL/SQL
BB4 TechnologiesMar 2002Big Brother system
SitrakaNov 2002$54.7 MillionApplication management offerings to custom web applications written in Java
Aelita SoftwareMar 2004$115 MillionMicrosoft infrastructure management capabilities
Wingra TechnologiesFeb 2005
Imceda SoftwareMay 2005$46.5 millionSQL Server backup and recovery capabilities
VintelaJun 2005$57.4 millionidentity management
AftermailJan 2006storage management and compliance archiving space
Charonware s.r.o.2006Purchased From Czech Republic, the makers of CASE Studio2, and folded in into the TOAD Data Modeler product
Magnum TechnologiesMay 2007
ScriptLogicAug 2007$90 millionSmall-to-medium-sized business market specialists
eXc SoftwareOct 2007
Provision NetworksNov 2007End-to-end application, desktop monitoring, and management
VizioncoreJan 2008server virtualization market. Now vRanger
Aknonix SystemsAug 2008Bring Quest Policy Authority for Unified Communications and Quest Spotlight on Messaging
NetproSep 2008$77.7 millionMigrate, manage and secure Microsoft Active Directory, Exchange, SharePoint and SQL Server environments
PassGo TechnologiesJan 2008Active Directory based identity management strategy to non-Windows systems
MonoSphereJan 2009Applications, databases, Windows infrastructure, and virtual environments
PacketTrapDec 2009Network monitoring
Voelcker Informatik AGJul 2010Identity and access management
SurgientAug 2010Private cloud automation market
BakBone SoftwareJan 2011$55 milliondata protection technologies
e-DMZ SecurityFeb 2011Identity and access management solutions
RemoteScanMay 2011Desktop virtualization
SymlabsJun 2011Identity and access management offering
ChangeBASEOct 2011Windows application, desktop, mobile and cloud
vKernelNov 2011Server virtualization market.
BiTKOODec 2011
Blue FolderFeb 2012Cloud-based service management platform
MetalogixJun 2018Microsoft platform management, Office 365, SharePoint Integration

Key Leaders

David Doyle - Founder and Director. David was the primary designer and developer during the Quest's first 4 years. His title changed to President some time after partnering with Vinny Smith, and he remained with Quest until March 2003.
Doug Garn – Became the president of Quest Software in 2005, and in 2008, Garn became CEO and president of Quest Software. In June 2013, Alteryx Inc, a computer software company, appointed Garn to board of directors.
Billy Bosworth – Became the VP & GM of databases management at Quest Software from June 2005 to May 2011. In May 2011, he became the CEO and founder of Datastax.
Shayne Higdon – Became the SVP & GM of virtualization and application performance management at Quest Software from August 2011 to August 2012. Currently, he is the president of performance and analytics at BMC Software.
Vincent C. Smith – Vinny was CEO of Quest from 1997 to 2008, then stepped down for 3 years, taking the role of "Executive Chairman". Vinny resumed his role as CEO of Quest Software in 2011. In 2012, Vinny Smith became the founder of Toba Capital, a venture capital firm headquartered in Newport Beach, CA.
Michael Dell – The chairman, founder and CEO of Dell Technologies. Acquired Quest Software in September 2012. In September 2016, his company acquired the enterprise software and storage company, EMC Corporation.
John Swainson – On March 5, 2012, John Swainson became president of Dell Software. Previously, Swainson was senior advisor to Silver Lake Partners, a global private equity firm. Prior to Silver Lake, he was CEO and director of CA Inc., from early 2005 through 2009.
Jeff Hawn – CEO of Quest from November 2016 to November 2019.
Michael Kohlsdorf – CEO of Quest from December 2019 to present.
Colleen Langevin - Chief Marketing Officer, May 2020.
Greg Randolph - Chief Revenue Officer, May 2020.
Chris DeBiase - Chief Operations Officer, May 2020.

Services

Data protection and disaster recovery – Backup and recovery services to protect and backup virtual and cloud systems, apps and data.
Unified Endpoint Management – OS provisioning, automated network discovery of software and hardware inventory, asset management, endpoint security and patching, application software distribution and maintenance, and service desk.
Platform Management and migration – Microsoft platform management tasks for Active Directory, Exchange, Skype for Business, Azure AD, and Office 365.
Information Management – Applications to store, modify, and analyze a database and automate routine tasks and standardize database performance monitoring.
Identity and Access Management – For the process to govern identities, manage privileged accounts, and control access.

Awards and Recognitions

The following table includes the listing and the timeline of awards and recognition that Quest Software received since 2004.