Posted by : trraju on Apr 13, 2004 - 06:46 AM WebTechnology

Trung Dung went from pauper to prince when he created the technology behind OnDisplay Inc., which was sold at the height of the dot-com boom for $1.8 billion. His story, an updated rags-to-riches tale of an immigrant who fled war-torn Vietnam, studied computer programming while working multiple jobs in Boston to support himself and his family, moved west to pursue new opportunities and turned an innovative high-tech idea into a business worth billions, could have ended there. But it doesn't.
In the sprawling Bishop Ranch campus in San Ramon, in the building next door to OnDisplay's old headquarters, Dung (pronounced "Young") is developing a new software business, one that he hopes will eclipse the first one.

Fogbreak Software helps businesses manage the manufacturing they contract to others. It taps into the growing trend of high-tech companies hiring production houses in Asia and elsewhere to build the computers, cell phones and other systems they design in the United States. Fogbreak's customers, such as Symbol, a maker of parts for hand-held and wireless devices, use the programs to handle such tasks as tracking inventory levels and complying with financial regulations.

Dung has set the bar higher than before. For the first time, he is leading the company as its chief executive. He also wants to make Fogbreak grow into a company as big and profitable as local tech powerhouse PeopleSoft Inc.

But it is not necessarily about the money. Those who have met Dung, now a multimillionaire, all zero in on one word to describe him: humble. Dung has taken his opportunities seriously, seizing them knowing that he never would have had them if he had not fled Vietnam and demonstrating a chutzpah that attracted the attention of CBS anchorman Dan Rather, who wrote about Dung in the book "American Dreams."

"I've been very lucky. I still can't imagine that I have the opportunity to do what I do today," Dung says. Sitting at a small table in his functional but unadorned office, his thin body straightens and his normally even voice rises a notch as he makes the point for the second time.

"That's why I'm serious when I say it's a crime for me not to do something like this," he says. "Few people have the opportunity to do something like this. To me, it's just a crime if I don't do this."

His first big break came as a teenager 20 years ago, when he escaped from Vietnam in a fishing boat. His father, who sided with the United States during the war, had been thrown into a labor camp and Dung knew he had an uncertain future as the son of a political enemy.
After three attempts, including one in which he was shot at, captured and sent to prison, Dung landed at a refugee camp in Indonesia. Reunited with his older sister, who had managed to leave a few months after him, they headed to the United States a year later.

Though they requested to be relocated in Louisiana, a warm climate, they found themselves in Boston. Dung calls it a blessing in disguise. He passed a high school equivalency test and enrolled at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, studying math and computer science while holding a range of jobs, from restaurant dishwasher to computer lab technician, and sending a third of his $300 to $400 paycheck to Vietnam.

A few years later, he reunited with his younger sister, mother and father, who had been released from prison after 13 years. He pursued a doctoral degree, but left the program to take a full-time job so he could support his mother, who had been stricken with cancer.

To distract her, Dung would tell her about the company he longed to build, recalls his younger sister, Thao Dung, an optometrist in Pleasanton. "He told her his dream to have a big company, to own a company later on," she said.

When she died in late 1995, he quit his job at a software start-up to pursue his idea: to develop programs that would help companies conduct business over the Web. Because he could not afford a laptop, he would pack up his computer and 17-inch monitor into his Honda Civic and lug them from presentation to presentation. But because he had no track record, he could not drum up interest. Already thin, he lost weight and turned pale as he lost sleep from juggling the pressure to support his family and fulfill his dream.

By chance, a friend introduced him to Mark Pine, a former executive at Sybase Inc. who had retired but was looking to jump back into the high-tech industry. It was another opportunity that Dung decided not to pass up. Packing up his computer and clothes, he moved into Pine's pool house in Walnut Creek. "My kids called him Uncle Trung," said Pine, now a managing director at venture capital firm Sigma Partners.

Under Pine's helm, OnDisplay became one of the dot-com boom's successes, drawing such customers as Travelocity.com. It raised $84 million in its initial public offering in 1999 and was bought by Vignette Corp. in 2000 for $1.8 billion.

Dung could have retired comfortably, tooling around in his Porsche Turbo, one of the few items he splurged on ("a complete waste of money," he says with a blush). Now married, he traveled to Hawaii with his wife, who was training as an oncologist at UC San Francisco. He bought a home there for his father and one in Southern California for his wife's parents. But within months, he was itching to start another company.

Yu Hao Lin, a management consultant and venture capitalist in San Jose who co-founded the Vietnamese Silicon Valley Network, of which Dung is a director, asked him last year: "You already make so much (money), why are you still looking for work?" He still remembers Trung's response: "Do you know, for every $100,000 I can put together, how much good I can do for the people of Vietnam?"

Sinking about $1 million of his own money into Fogbreak, he raised funding, more easily this time, from investors such as Pine. "This has the potential to be a public company that can grow and expand and have the legs of a PeopleSoft," Pine said, referring to the Pleasanton company that in the past decade has grown into the nation's largest business software maker.

Dung now leads about 40 employees in the company's San Ramon office, with plans to hire 10 to 20 more this year as the company expands and attracts new customers this year.

Former OnDisplay employees have followed him to Fogbreak. Laurie Gibbons was the first salesperson hired at both OnDisplay and Fogbreak. In between, she bided her time, anticipating that she would team up with Dung again. "I knew whatever he did, he would be successful," said Gibbons, Fogbreak's vice president of sales. "I would be his salesperson again and again."

Still, Fogbreak faces a challenging high-tech market, which has improved in recent months, but is not nearly as hospitable as it was during OnDisplay's time. Oracle Corp.'s hostile takeover bid for PeopleSoft kicked off a wave of consolidation in the software market, and businesses remain wary of buying products developed by a small newcomer that they worry will not be around in a few years. Dung isn't deterred.

"As an entrepreneur, you can't time the market," Dung said. "Therefore, if you think you have a good idea, you have to go for it, regardless of whether the market is on the upside or downside."

Said Pine: "Here is a guy who tried to escape from Vietnam three times (and) was dumped in Boston when he wanted a warm place. Here's a guy who doesn't let obstacles get in his way. He says, 'This is what I need to do,' and he does it."

Ellen Lee covers technology and telecommunications. She can be reached at 925-952-2614 or elee@cctimes.com.

NAME: Trung Dung

AGE: 37

EDUCATION: Bachelor of science degree in computer science and applied mathematics from the University of Massachusetts, Boston, in 1988; Completed coursework for Ph.D. in computer science at Boston University.

RESIDENCE: Alamo

OCCUPATION: CEO of Fogbreak Software

CLAIM TO FAME: Co-founder of OnDisplay Inc., which was sold at the height of the dot-com boom to Vignette Corp. for $1.8 billion. Featured in Dan Rather's book "American Dreams."

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