Netezza is growing nicely as big-name director looks on

Technology companies often mark their progress by associating themselves with big names, whether of individuals or companies.

For little Netezza Corp., it will be hard to top its current association with Motorola Inc. chairman and CEO Ed Zander, a board member of the Framingham data warehouse maker.

Zander took the titles of chairman and chief executive of the Chicago-area technology giant in January. Excluding telephone carriers, only five technology companies hold slots ahead of Motorola on the Fortune 500: IBM Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., Dell Computer Corp., Microsoft Corp. and Intel Corp.

It is probably safe to say that no local startups have Samuel Palmisano, Carly Fiorina, Michael Dell, Steve Ballmer or Craig Barrett on their boards.

Zander, however, is a director of Netezza and, according to CEO Jit Saxena, shows up regularly for board meetings.

It's a bit like Nomar Garciaparra showing up on the odd weekend to be the assistant coach of your little league baseball team, or Bill Clinton coming by occasionally to coach the local high school debate team.

One wonders how Zander spends his days. One moment he is plotting the next cell phone that could sustain Motorola's 2004 recovery -- the next he is reviewing foosball table designs for Netezza's game room. He cites the Motorola catchphrase of "seamless mobility" for the umpteenth time, only to catch a flight to Boston to talk startup strategy.

Netezza seems to have been doing pretty well all on its own. Sales are increasing for its corporate data center machine that helps companies swiftly link up and build out internal databases locked away in storage computers.

"Companies are now being able to deal with data they had previously ignored," Saxena said.

The company was listed recently in Gartner Group's so-called magic quadrant, a top ranking among peers based on its revenue and technical reputation.