Caymas Says Its Still Alive And Kicking

As CRN reported Wednesday, the future of Caymas, a startup in the network access control market, was cast into doubt after the company's Website went dark and its main phone number stopped working.

But a company executive told CRN Thursday that the Website and phone problems were the result of technical issues that arose from its migration to a new headquarters, and have since been resolved.

"Caymas is still definitely in business and we continue to serve our customers," said Sridhar Venkatesh, senior director of marketing at Caymas, based in San Jose, Calif.

Caymas recently consolidated its operations and closed its offices in Petaluma, Calif., said Venkatesh.

"Given our cost structure, we decided that managing two sites was becoming a financial burden," he said. He declined to estimate how much Caymas would save as a result of the move.

Venkatesh said consolidation "involved some layoffs," but declined to say how many of the company approximately 20 staff were affected.

The move to San Jose caused a temporary disruption in phone service, and problems with company's Website have stemmed from recent hacker attacks, said Venkatesh.

However, although the Website was back up as of Thursday afternoon, Caymas' main phone was still unreachable.

Asked to comment on industry speculation that Caymas was looking for a buyer, Venkatech said: "As a startup, we're always engaged with various companies in terms of [forming] different types of partnerships, whether they're technology, distribution, or strategic partnerships."

Founded in 2002, Caymas carved out a niche in the crowded NAC market with a unique security appliance that combines SSL and IPSec VPN functionality with NAC.

Last year, Caymas moved away from a channel sales model that focused on midmarket customers in favor of a direct sales approach that targets enterprise customers, Venkatesh said.

"To continue growing the channel would have consumed the business by itself, so we decided to focus on large enterprise accounts," said Venkatesh. "Going after these guys direct is the way to really get into that market."