NEIL HENNESSY, VICE PRESIDENT OF IT engineering forPeopleSoft, learned about Pilot´s collapse in a most unusualway. At the end of a weekly meeting with his Pilot rep, theman announced, "I have to go back to the office and get firedat 4:30." And in the week leading up to Pilot´s bankruptcyfiling, Hennessy says he was fending off a wake of vultures.

"One guy calls from Southern California, and he´s telling mehow he can offer me everything Pilot did for less money,"Hennessy says. "So I ask him, ´How many employees do youhave?´ and he tells me 40. So I said to him, ´Pilot had400. Why would I trust you?´"

Truthfully, Hennessy had started to lose faith in Pilotbeginning a year before its collapse. He was particularlyworried about the company´s scalability. "They just couldn´tstep up. Not that they didn´t try. Their model was verysecure, but we started looking at other options back then,"he says.

Hennessy´s favored alternative was to phase out his managedsecurity contract and take the task back in-house. This,after all, was the year of uber-viruses and broad,destructive hacks. Hennessy decided that security was justtoo critical to outsource.

His transition plan meshed with his contingencyplan. Hennessy already had a backup carrier with a "dark"data line, one that´s not turned on but could be activated inan emergency. And he started building an internal securitystaff of five with five more to come.