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It's amazing what can happen when a company listens to its customers. For example, several years ago, Dell CEO Michael Dell found out customers were spending lots of money installing software on their systems. So, what did he do? He set up a sophisticated system that did the installations for each customer.

There is another company, NetPartners, which was also smart enough to listen to its customers. The company was founded -- via credit card with an $8,000 limit -- in 1994. The original mission was to provide IT consulting services for companies.

There's nothing really new about this type of business -- other than it is extremely competitive. NetPartners did quite a lot of business installing firewalls -- which help protect the internal networks of corporations. So far, NetPartners has conducted more than 1,000 firewall installations. While doing these projects, NetPartners founder Phil Trubey said he kept hearing the same question: How do I ensure that my employees are using the Net for business purposes?

Many employees were spending time on the Net for recreational purposes, such as reading about sports and finance and looking at pornography. The result was a product called the WebSense Internet Screening System.

The product accomplishes two main goals: First, it provides detailed reporting on what types of sites each employee is visiting. It can even show the costs -- that is, how much connection time is used when an employee is looking at nonessential sites. Second, the software allows for a high degree of customization. After all, each company has unique needs. For example, if you work at ESPN, you would not want to have the software block this site or other sports sites. These reports may show more than the costs of employee recreational-surfing. For example, WebSense can indicate if certain types of applications are consuming lots of bandwidth.

Also, the software has the ability to block certain types of sites. This not only helps improve productivity, but also helps protect a company legally. A company may have legal trouble if employees are gambling or viewing pornography -- which may be seen as sexual harassment.

The software has an extensive database of more than 275,000 websites classified into 50 categories. The first version, launched in 1996, had 40,000 sites and 26 categories. Basically, the database is composed of URLs. It is not based on the occurrence of forbidden words. So, if you type "Essex" in your browser, the software will not flag the word "sex" and deny you access.

There are 10 full-time employees that constantly add to the database. NetPartners does not charge for the software. Rather, it makes money by offering an annual subscription fee for updates to the database, which is based on the number of users on the network. The database updates are downloaded automatically every day. The software costs about $1,095 for a 100-user license.

However, many companies have a hodgepodge of operating systems. Thus, NetPartners made WebSense compliant with Windows NT, Microsoft Proxy Server, Netscape Proxy Server, Check Point's FireWall-1, Cisco's Pix Firewall, and Milkyway's SecurIT Firewall.

WebSense is also the only product in its industry that meets the rigorous security standards of the International Computer Security Association, which certifies firewall and virus-protection software. Of course, having a good product is not enough; there needs to be a solid marketing plan.

In short order, NetPartners has been able to establish a comprehensive international valued-added-reseller channel -- in which the WebSense product is sold primarily to businesses, schools, and ISPs. The company has more than 200 resellers.

Although much of the growth of NetPartners comes from WebSense, the company still provides IT services. There are several reasons for this. "We can leverage the customer base," says Bryan Wampler, a vice president of NetPartners. "Also, we keep up-to-date on the latest issues."

The corporate filtering market is expected to grow very quickly. According to Giga Information Group, by 2000, about 23 percent of Web-connected companies will use such software. Actually, the market for Net-screening is estimated to grow to $1.8 million by 2004.

With such potential, it is not surprising that, in June, NetPartners was able to secure a first round of venture-capital financing of $6 million. Of this amount, $5 million came from Morgan Stanley Venture Partners, and the remaining came from Edelson Technology Partners.

If NetPartners continues its success, it will not be long until many others start listening to it.

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