Yet Opnet's recent financial and stock performance is a far cry from surging Garmin and Flir.
Opnet has since sold the battle-hardened application to commercial clients, including a big phone company.
Opnet went public in August 2000, just in time for the turn-of-the-century bust in tech and telecom.
Born to diplomat parents, he and brother Alain (now Opnet's chief technology officer) grew up in Washington.
Gabriel Lowy, research analyst in New York with brokerage firm Collins Stewart, thinks Opnet will regain its stride.
Standard or not, how Cohen got Opnet off the ground should interest entrepreneurs targeting the federal government market.
But even as big customers like Cisco Systems and Hewlett-Packard struggled, Opnet stayed afloat and in the black.
And, like many smaller companies inside the Beltway, Opnet still depends on partnerships with defense heavies to pull in business.
Opnet eventually turned that customization into NetCop, an application giving network managers a dashboard-like view of traffic flow and performance.
The latter metric, which measures a company's market value, plus net debt, to its revenues, makes Opnet look cheaper at just 1.5.
Despite its recent stock slump, Opnet's price-to-earnings ratio of 41, based on profit estimates for the coming 12 months, still looks rich.
If you believe that the network trend still has legs, consider shares of a smaller company on the software side: Opnet Technologies.
Example: In 2003, the U.S. Army's Central Command--the U.S. military authority for the Middle East--asked Opnet to customize one of its network-management products.
On an August conference call with analysts, Cohen blamed the results on a historically weak first quarter and reshuffling in Opnet's sales force.
While executing its public sector work, Cohen says, Opnet keeps its eye on how applications might appeal to the commercial half of its customer base.
Now up to 500 employees, Opnet still shows some small-company frisk.
On the other hand, we struck out with MTC Technologies, a technical services provider to the feds, and Opnet Technologies, a network software developer.
An important one is with BAE Systems, for whom Opnet does modeling, simulation and research for big initiatives like the U.S. Army's Future Combat System and the Joint Tactical Radio System.
In business since 1986, Opnet sells systems that help big organizations map out their networks, analyze the network interaction of different devices and applications, and troubleshoot when things crash or get sluggish.
If you believe that the network trend still has legs, consider shares of a smaller company on the software side: Opnet Technologies (nasdaq: OPNT - news - people ).
But even as big customers like Cisco Systems (nasdaq: CSCO - news - people ) and Hewlett-Packard (nyse: HPQ - news - people ) struggled, Opnet stayed afloat and in the black.
An important one is with BAE Systems (other-otc: BAESF - news - people ), for whom Opnet does modeling, simulation and research for big initiatives like the U.S. Army's Future Combat System and the Joint Tactical Radio System.
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