Company Overview

Key Facts

Customers include Verizon, NASA, Oracle, and the U.S. Department of Defense. Products can be deployed across a variety of computing environments, including Windows, Unix, and Linux applications.

Key Financial Facts

2004 revenue: $12.5 million 1-yr. growth rate: –10.8 percent

Personnel Highlights

Number of employees: 100 1-yr. growth rate: –7.4 percent

Company Overview

Santa Cruz is known as a cauldron of radical thought, and Tarantella (formerly The Santa Cruz Operation) fits right in. The company—now a subsidiary of Sun Microsystems after a $25 million acquisition in 2005—produces network infrastructure management software that allows users to log in to enterprise applications and data via a Web-based interface. With Tarantella products one can connect desktops, servers, and software applications as well as wireless devices including laptops, handhelds or cellular phones. Founded in 1979, the company went public in 1993. While it once had offices in the United Kingdom, Mexico, Italy, Germany, France, and Spain, it’s now down to its Santa Cruz headquarters and branches in Newport Beach, California, and New Providence, New Jersey. Incidentally, a tarantella is a dance often accompanied by mandolins and not unlike the theme music to “The Godfather.”