Death-Defying Acts

Can a discredited software vendor come back to life? Sure, if its software is unique. Michael McGrath had planned to stay only a short while when he became chief executive of I2 Technologies in February 2005. He's still there, though the time hasn't been particularly fun. The Dallas software firm was a shambles. It had lost 99% of its market value since the tech peak and two-thirds of its sales volume, in part to software titans SAP and Oracle. The Securities & Exchange Commission filed suit against three of its former executives for falsely booking $360 million in revenue over 4 years. Today I2 is still struggling to grow, but at least it's profitable, with its balance sheet in decent shape and its salesmen back on the streets selling the sophisticated production-planning software that the company's founders developed in the early 1990s. If McGrath can win back the respect of corporate software buyers, he will be one of the few ever to revive a fallen technology brand.