Quest Software, also known as Quest, is a privately held

software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

company headquartered in

Aliso Viejo, California Aliso Viejo (Spanish for "Old Sycamore") is a city in the San Joaquin Hills of southern Orange County, California. It had a population of 52,176 as of the 2020 census, up from 47,823 as of the 2010 census. It became Orange County's 34th city ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. Quest provides cloud management,

software as a service Software as a service (SaaS ) is a cloud computing service model where the provider offers use of application software to a client and manages all needed physical and software resources. SaaS is usually accessed via a web application. Unlike o ...

, security, workforce mobility, and backup & recovery. The company was founded in 1987 and has 53 offices in 24 countries.

History

Quest Software was founded in 1987 in

Newport Beach, California Newport Beach is a coastal city of about 85,000 in southern Orange County, California, United States. Located about southeast of downtown Los Angeles, Newport Beach is known for its sandy beaches. The city's harbor once supported maritime indu ...

, with a line of products for

HP Multi-Programming Executive MPE (Multi-Programming Executive) is a discontinued business-oriented mainframe computer real-time operating system developed by Hewlett-Packard for their HP 3000 computers. While the HP 3000s were initially mini-mainframes, the final high-end s ...

(MPE). In 1995, Vinny Smith joined the company. The following year, Quest entered the database management market with an Oracle SQL

database tuning Database tuning describes a group of activities used to optimize and homogenize the performance of a database. It usually overlaps with query tuning, but refers to design of the database files, selection of the database management system (DBMS) ...

product. In 1997, Quest opened an office in the United Kingdom. Doug Garn joined Quest as the Vice President of Sales in 1998. That same year, Quest added offices in Germany and Australia, and Smith became CEO. In October, Quest acquired

TOAD Toad (also known as a hoptoad) is a common name for certain frogs, especially of the family Bufonidae, that are characterized by dry, leathery skin, short legs, and large bumps covering the parotoid glands. In popular culture (folk taxonomy ...

. On August 13, 1999, Quest Software went public. In 2002, a Quest office opened in Japan. The next year, Quest opened new offices in Asia, specifically in Singapore, Korea, and China. Doug Garn became CEO and president, and Vinny Smith became executive chairman of Quest in 2008. In 2009, Alan Fudge became vice president of sales. In 2011, Vinny Smith became CEO and chairman, and Doug Garn became vice chairman. On September 28, 2012, Dell announced it had completed the acquisition of Quest Software. In 2016, Quest Software acquired ScriptLogic, and Charonware s.r.o from the Czech Republic. Charonware made CASE Studio2, and after being acquired, Quest folded it into the

TOAD Data Modeler Toad Data Modeler is a database design tool allowing users to visually create, maintain, and document new or existing database systems, and to deploy changes to data structures across different platforms. It is used to construct logical and phys ...

product. On November 1, 2016,

Francisco Partners Francisco Partners Management, L.P., doing business as Francisco Partners, is an American private equity firm focused exclusively on investments in technology and technology-enabled services businesses. It was founded in August 1999 and based in ...

and

Elliott Management Elliott Investment Management L.P. is an American investment management firm. It is also one of the largest activist funds in the world. It is the management affiliate of American hedge funds Elliott Associates L.P. and Elliott International ...

completed the purchase of

Dell Software Dell Software was a former division of Dell with headquarters in Round Rock, Texas, United States. Dell Software was created by merging various acquisitions (mainly Quest Software and Sonicwall) by Dell Inc., the third-largest maker of PCs and ...

, and the company re-launched itself as Quest Software. On June 1, 2017, One Identity was announced as an independent brand, but remained part of the Quest family of businesses. On September 2, 2020, Quest acquired Binary Tree. On January 5, 2021, Quest acquired erwin, Inc., including

erwin Data Modeler erwin Data Modeler (stylized as erwin but formerly as ERwin) is computer software for data modeling. Originally developed by Logic Works, erwin has since been acquired by a series of companies, before being spun-off by the private equity firm Par ...

On November 29, 2021,

Clearlake Capital Clearlake Capital Group, L.P. is a private equity firm founded in 2006 that focuses on the technology, industrial and consumer sectors. The firm is headquartered in Santa Monica with affiliates in Dallas, London and Dublin. In 2022, the firm was ...

bought Quest from Francisco Partners for $5.4 billion, including debt.

References

{{Authority control Software companies based in California Technology companies based in Greater Los Angeles Companies based in Aliso Viejo, California Software companies established in 1987 1987 establishments in California American companies established in 1987 Privately held companies based in California 2012 mergers and acquisitions 2016 mergers and acquisitions Private equity portfolio companies Software companies of the United States