Exodus Communications
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Exodus Communications was a high-flying internet hosting and service provider to dot-com businesses that went broke with their customers.
Exodus Inception
Exodus was founded in 1992 as Fouress, Inc., and reincorporated in 1994 to Exodus Communications.Exodus Communications [EXDS]was a Global Web Hosting Company in Santa Clara
The original headquarters was located on Wyatt Drive in Santa Clara, just down the street from the Intel HQ The final Exodus HQ was at 2831 Mission College Drive in Santa Clara (now Yahoo!'s HQ).
March 1998 Exodus Communications (NASDAQ: EXDS) completes IPO
Executive Leadership
K.B. Chandrasekhar served as CEO from inception until September, 2001.In March of 1998, Ellen Hancock, a former Vice President at IBM and CTO of Apple Computer, was recruited as President. She assumed the CEO post in September of 1998. She resigned Sept 10, 2001.
She was followed by Bill Krause and then.... Bill Austin?
Product Offerings
In House Offerings: Web Hosting (high end - not shared) Colocation Services Network access and Internet Bandwidth Managed Security Services & ConsultingFor all of the Below Services Exodus relied on outsourced partners:
Managed Backup and Storage Services - Exodus served as the hub for no less than 8 managed storage companies and resold services from at least half
Managed Web Hosting - MSP-like turn-key complex hosting offerings including all operational and capital costs in a single price per month
Content Distribution Networks (CDN) - In addition to creating ReadyCache (based on non-functioning Inktomi technology), Exodus invested in and sold MirrorImage CDN. However none of these services were ever market leading or even competitive.
Notable Highlights
Carried most (essentially all) of the Internet's west coast traffic in the summer of 1996, after a major outage effectively shut down the entire western region Internet.Five stock splits in approximately 12 months
One out of every three to four Internet crossing packets traversed the Exodus network, at its peak.
Hosted most major websites such as Google, Yahoo!, PayPal, Weather Channel,Merrill Lynch, American Airlines, Microsoft, Hotmail, Dilbert.com, Geocities, Nextcard, etc.
Highly secure data centers with sophisticated physical security technology like weight activated mantraps, biometric access, and explosion resistant 'vaults'.
Still holds a NASDAQ record for 13 consecutive quarters of >40% growth.
Corporate Culture
At the height of the company, there were approximately 4500 employees & 46 data centers.The headquarters was expanded to build two 8 story towers in addition to the 4 story building.
At headquarters, facilities included on-site Gym, Massage Therapists (for a fee), and Cafe.
The culture was typical of fast-moving companies in that hiring was difficult and responsibilities were often unclear. Decisionmaking was top-down and sometimes characterized as Machiavellian. Sales was the most powerful organization in the company (as evidenced by high cost of sales due to good comp plans), followed by Professional Services (as evidenced by the employee count - about 1/3 of the company).
Acquistions
Exodus acquired American Information Systems, Cohesive, Arca Systems, and Network-1's professional services division.Exodus acquired 20% of Mirror Image for $700 million and purchased GlobalCenter from Global Crossing for $7 billion at the height of the bubble. It was these two acquisitions that created the staggering debt that bankrupted the company.
A major element of their failure was due to "Dot-com" customers who failed to pay their bills, resulting in severe revenue shortages.
Another major issue was the overly aggressive footprint expansion effort. Many felt that they should have stopped at 23-27 datacenters, not the 47 or so in service at the peak. When the customer base evaporated the company was left with several very expensive empty buildings.
Chapter 11
On Wednesday, September 26, 2001 Exodus Communications®, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXDS) announced today it filed voluntary petitions for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. The filing will enable Exodus® to focus on operating its business and serving its customers while it develops a plan of reorganization to provide a suitable capital structure for long-term growth. The company also announced it has received a commitment for up to $200 million in debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing from GE Capital which will be used to fund post-petition operating expenses and supplier and employee obligations.The company filed its voluntary petition in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware in Wilmington. The filing includes the company's domestic operations headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif.
Acquired by Cable and Wireless
November 2001 — Cable and Wireless USA purchased bankrupt web hosting/co-location provider Exodus Communications for $800 million dollars. C&W merged its smaller US operation, the previously acquired Digital Island, with the larger Exodus operation and renamed it Cable and Wireless America.Alumni
Dave Asprey, a founder of the Exodus Professional Services group in 1998, and later Director of Strategic Planning, maintains an online social network of Exodus Alumni on Yahoo! Groups has over 1200 confirmed members. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/exodus-alumni/Ellen Hancock (EXDS CEO for 3 years) is on the Board of EDS and Colgate/Palmolive BV Jagadeesh (EXDS founder and CTO) successfully took over NetScaler and sold it to Citrix(Nasdaq:CTXS) in 2005 for about $350 million. Many well-known Exodus Alumni are there, including Sheen Khoury, Prabakar Sundarrajan, and Dave Asprey. Chandra (EXDS founder and CEO) founded JamCracker (privately held) and was still CEO as of early 2006.
Many other Exodus alumni have launched successful careers throughout the Internet industry, with management roles at companies including Amazon, Good Technologies, NetLi, and Akamai. Other notable Exodus alumni are still working for Savvis, the company who bought Cable & Wireless/Digital Island, which also went bankrupt after buying the cursed Exodus assets. Savvis has largely succeeded in creating managed web hosting offerings that were started at Exodus.
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