At least 10 of the original Marshal staff are coming back to the company, said Macnair. Among these are general manager of Marshal Asia Pacific John Skeates, who used to be the president of Marshal Software; chief software architect Peter Hodges, and chief technology strategist Kevin McFall. Hodges and McFall founded Marshal Software in 2000.

'They are all so excited to get their 'baby' back,' said Macnair.

Some developers from the Houston center are coming to work for Marshal in New Zealand, he said.

Macnair said the reason for the split is that there was 'no synergy between NetIQ and Marshal." NetIQ traditionally sells its products through its own salesforce, whereas Marshal has always worked with resellers. From a development viewpoint, Marshal updated its products every six months, while NetIQ updated every two years, said Macnair.

When Marshal was sold to NetIQ in 2002 it had 6,500 customers. Today it has 17,000 world-wide, said Macnair.