What does a Silicon Valley startup have to do to lure a powerful software executive? Not much, when the startup is TriStrata Securities.
About four months ago, TriStrata officials called up Paul Wahl, who at the time was the CEO of the American arm of SAP, Germany's biggest software developer and the biggest business software vendor in the world. TriStrata had little to offer other than its technology and the promise of a golden future. But that was enough to entice Wahl, he said in an interview on Tuesday.
"I was a happy person at SAP," the 45-year-old German-born executive said. "But the real excitement is what we can do with the technology here at TriStrata. Technology is the kind of thing that excites me. And I think with TriStrata we can change the industry quite a bit."
That's because TriStrata is working on security software that it claims will let people send sensitive information over the Internet in absolute security from digital eavesdropping. "With our technology, the Internet is secure; it's unbreakable," Wahl said.
The company was founded by John Atalla, the scientist who created the security infrastructure behind automated teller machines. In 1993, Atalla came out of retirement at the request of banking executives to create software that would make electronic transactions absolutely secure.
TriStrata claims its approach to encryption is fundamentally different than other widely used versions. Its system is based on the so-called one-time pad approach, which uses randomly generated numbers to create a unique encryption series for each message. The one-time approach is theoretically unbreakable.
Closely held TriStrata won't release its financial results. Currently, the company has about a dozen customers and "a long list" of companies that have declared an interest in the product, according to Wahl.
Encryption experts don't know whether TriStrata can pull off its claims. The secretive Redwood Shores, California, firm hasn't discussed its technology widely.
"They have not made any of their algorithms public," said Jon Callas, a security expert with Network Associates, maker of the popular Pretty Good Privacy software. "So it wouldn't be possible to make any comment, one way or the other."
Wahl said he's undaunted. He said he's very optimistic about TriStrata's prospects.
"The team that's here is basically a very, very strong engineering team," Wahl said of TriStrata's 30-odd employees. "What we need to build now is the front office, the sales and marketing channels. That's obviously the first task I want to focus on."
In the long run, Wahl sees his new employer as being as powerful as SAP America. "It probably takes a couple of years to reach that size, but that's an opportunity I truly believe in."
