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Once upon a time in the middle of the Ruhr area, Kai Figge and Andreas Lüning, two young computer science students, met in a copy shop. Both were technically minded and had a soft spot for the 1985 Atari ST home computer. They agreed that this computer had potential, but there was little software available – and they wanted to change that for the fast-growing fan community.
While Germany was still devided by the Berlin Wall, Gorbatschow became General Secretary of the CPSU and "Live is Life" was a big hit in Clubs around the globe, the two started with their first product, which was small but useful. The Atari forgot the time after each power down which was annoying but not only for the two inventors. They wrote a program, linked it to a clock and plugged it into their home computer. From then on, the Atari always knew what time it was. During this premiere, the advantages of the parental summerhouse were also evident, since in addition to the software, clocks were needed which had to be stored until dispatch.
Shortly afterwards, after overcoming their parents concerns that they would not learn anything worthwhile without university studies, the two company founders succeeded in creating a groundbreaking invention without which no single computer with Internet access would be safe. In 1987, Andreas Lüning discovered two of the first boot sector viruses in circulation on the diskettes of his Atari ST home computer. This was the reason to write a program for checking and cleaning the diskettes and to distribute it to other Atari ST users – born was the world's first commercial antivirus program, the nucleus of the G DATA success story.
Andreas Lüning remembers: "Our focus was the fun of programming, we had successfully founded a business from our hobby. The idea of writing an anti-virus program was a coincidence: without the infection of my floppy disk collection we would not have thought of it. But Kai immediately recognized the great potential behind it. Of course, every Atari ST owner had great interest in keeping his computer free of malware. Moreover, there was not a single competitor in this area. In fact, we invented the virus protection program and were the first to market it. With our AntiVirusKit for MS-DOS with its own graphical user interface , it was clear for the first time that we had the greatest expertise and success in this field of business."
Although other IT companies are drawn to prominent locations such as Berlin, Munich or Silicon Valley, for Kai Figge and Andreas Lüning there is no alternative to Bochum in the face of steadily growing success.
Kai Figge: "We had no such intention of moving to Romania like other software developers. Here in Bochum, numerous graduates of the local universities have already found a secure job with G DATA. For me, this is one of the main reasons for the quality of our products. The Ruhr area offers the best opportunities for growth, where we can further expand our strong competence in software development and IT security. Of course, this is not only an advantage for private users: from here, we are also working successfully and increasingly with numerous companies from diverse economic sectors."