Investors Quickly Getting To Know Little Known Aladdin Knowledge; Stock's Been Up Most Of Year; Company gaining in digital rights management and in data security software fields.(INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY)

Byline: DONNA HOWELL

Perhaps an Aladdin Knowledge Systems' wish has already come true.

The small tech security company is outperforming 99% of all stocks, based on IBD's Relative Strength measure of the past 12 months.

Its shares have nearly tripled this year, despite falling the past week, helped by six straight quarters of profit, the last four of which have had rising per-share profit.

"They have very good products that are starting to generate revenue," said Joe Maxa, an analyst with investment bank Dougherty & Co.

Aladdin makes digital rights management products for software publishers and data security products for businesses. Its rights management lines, HASP and Privilege, had sales of $43.5 million last year. They help software publishers distribute programs to authorized users, free of piracy worries. Aladdin's business security lines, which saw $11.2 million in sales in 2003, include an authentication device called eToken and content security software product eSafe.

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