QUINCY, Mass. — For the past year, the software firm Ptech Inc. has operated quietly out of a Marina Bay office park here, where neighbors described the company's executives as "typical software geeks."
But Friday, the 25-person company and its client list found themselves in the glare of the national spotlight after authorities searched its offices as part of an investigation into the financing of terrorism.
Founded in Cambridge in 1994, Ptech develops modeling tools used to design and build computer networks, often sold in conjunction with consulting services in contracts worth $100,000 and up.
Though it has built a client list that includes major companies such as IBM Corp., Aetna Inc. and a unit of FleetBoston Financial Corp., it has suffered along with the rest of the technology sector in the wake of the Internet bust. Contracts with government agencies such as the FBI, the Air Force and NATO helped provide a steady source of revenue as orders from other technology companies dwindled.
Founder and chief executive Oussama Ziade, described by company controller Jeff Bennett as a U.S. citizen of Lebanese descent, has courted the media in the past, participating in magazine and newspaper profiles. In 1995 Ziade, then 30, recounted to the Globe how he had run up $16,000 in Visa card bills paying for a computer engineering degree at Boston University before founding the company.
Friday, though, Ziade was hesitant to speak. "From our point of view, there's basically nothing going on," he said in a brief telephone interview. "Ptech is a real company . . . we're basically very shocked by what's going on." In a statement, the company later said it is cooperating with investigators and denied any wrongdoing. The statement also said the company has been told that neither it nor its officers or employees are targets of the government's investigation.
Ptech officials won't describe in detail the company's funding sources except to say some are "investors from the Middle East," according to Bennett.
Closely held companies like Ptech often decline to name their backers, but Ptech's reluctance raised questions among firms it did business with. One former business associate said the exact source of Ptech's financial backing was kept mysterious.
"I never got a direct answer as to where their funds came from," the associate said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "I began working with them right after 9/11, and I was told they had about $20 million from overseas investors. I was told they can't say their name because they're Saudi."
People who had dealings with Ziade and Ptech's chief financial officer George Peterson described them as unassuming, knowledgeable businessmen. "Their tenancy was normal in every way," said Thomas O'Connell, a building manager who leased Ptech its 9,000 square feet of space last year.
In information submitted earlier this year for a business directory published by the Massachusetts Software & Internet Council, Ptech described itself as having 37 employees including 29 in Massachusetts, with foreign sales making up 25 percent of its $5 million to $9 million in revenue.
Like other software providers, Ptech had been strapped for cash and was forced to lay off about 10 employees earlier this year, said Bennett, the controller. "It was due to the whole business environment, all these (client) companies were hurting, and us too," he said. The company had expected a new round of investment earlier this year, and when that didn't happen, "we had to cut costs to revenue," he said.
Friday, several of Ptech's clients were reviewing their dealings, including the Air Force and IBM Corp. IBM spokesman Jeff Gluck said, "It's too early to say" what the company's relationship with Ptech will be going forward. But Gluck noted statements by government officials that Ptech's software itself seemed free of concerns, and said the company should be given the presumption of innocence.
"It's good to know the government has thoroughly invested the software and found it to be fine," he said. Another IBM executive noted that Ptech's modeling products weren't connected to operating systems and therefore wouldn't come in direct contact with sensitive information. "That seems to be what the government has found as well," the executive said.
John Zimmerman, director of customer relations at Meijer, a Michigan-based retailer, said the company had no problems with the products it bought from Ptech and would look to the government for guidance on further dealings.
"As long as the investigation proves them to be clean then we don't have a problem with them," he said. "If there's something wrong, then we're out."