Prior to deciding to go his own way, Hichert was a reseller, dealing in other vendors' security products. However, in his view, the products were too complex to use and were aimed at the enterprise market, leaving the SMB space untapped. So he and his two partners changed course and looked for a product to better work with SMB clientele.
To jump start their product line, they took open source code for a firewall solution. Adding their own embellishments, they developed a product that did fairly well in its first year.
"Open source let us take the status quo of that industry and our own limited resources and innovate," Hichert told the E-Commerce Times. "We started in 2001 as three kids fresh out of college."
Today Astaro offers three products: a firewall, an e-mail firewall and an Internet security appliance.
