ScriptLogic's Nick Cavalancia shared some other company news: Longtime CEO Jason Judge has left the company. For this to make sense, you have to have read the previous item.
As you recall, Quest bought ScriptLogic two-and-a-half years ago. Quest made good on its pledge to maintain ScriptLogic's independence by keeping Jason on as CEO (my guess is Judge remaining was part of the contract). I've seen this happen before, such as when Quest bought Aelita Software. The founder and head of Aelita, Ratmir Timashev, stayed on during the transition, but left afterward to start virtualization vendor Veeam, itself a very cool company.
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Posted by Doug Barney on February 03, 20100 comments
I talked to my old pal Nick Cavalancia, vice president of Windows management for ScriptLogic, about a new direction for the company. This is a little complicated so bear with me.
Quest Software last year bought a company called PacketTrap, which does network monitoring. Now, years earlier, Quest had bought ScriptLogic, though many don't know this because ScriptLogic is run pretty much as an independent company with its own brand, salesforce, product line, executive staff and development team. This is a smart move as ScriptLogic is known by thousands upon thousands of IT managers and admins.
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Posted by Doug Barney on February 03, 20100 comments
When Microsoft was under the antitrust gun, former government target IBM piled on. Now that Google is gaining dominance, it's only fair that Microsoft take a few shots.
And that's just what Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith did in a recent speech, arguing that Google's 90 percent share of the online advertising market should raise serious questions -- questions Google should be made to answer.
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Posted by Doug Barney on February 03, 20102 comments
Steve Jobs is a real American hero. It's tough to knock the guy, but I'll try anyway: His products are almost always closed and expensive, and he has a penchant for going after journalists for doing their job.
Despite these flaws, Jobs generally has the moral high ground, and that's why his recent Google comments sting so much. Google is famous for claiming to "do no evil." Jobs isn't buying it, saying it's all a load of...well, you fill in the blank.
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Posted by Doug Barney on February 03, 20109 comments
Microsoft has been busy lately with patches, in particular patching the famous hole that let Chinese hackers break into Gmail. Last week, Microsoft released four under-the-radar fixes -- not plugging holes per se, but correcting "idiosyncrasies."
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Posted by Doug Barney on February 01, 20100 comments
I thought I could ignore the iPad, but as someone who might be asked to buy one (or three) as Christmas presents, I can't resist. First, given Steve Jobs' track record and knack for design, this will be a raging success. But I have to question why it's based on the single-tasking iPod/iPhone OS rather than the richer, multitasking, full version of the Mac OS.
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Posted by Doug Barney on February 01, 20107 comments
Last April, the economy was crashing worse than a Lindsay Lohan SUV, and critics were predicting the fall of the Redmond empire. I wrote a long essay, "The Strength to Endure," arguing that Microsoft would be just fine.
Microsoft's latest earnings report backs my case, as rampant Windows 7 sales have Microsoft bean counters working overtime. Not only did Microsoft pull in nearly $19 billion (with an impressive net income of nearly $7 billion), but sales rose 60 percent compared to a year ago.
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Posted by Doug Barney on February 01, 20104 comments
Sometimes, stories like the one I'm about to bring you turn out false. But I'll proceed in assuming it's true. Apparently, an ex-Microsoft worker inadvertently posted release dates for nearly all important products Redmond is working on.
Here's a rundown of the leaked dates: Windows 8 will be out July 2011, Office 2012 a year later, and SQL Server 2011 in -- you guessed it -- 2011!
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Posted by Doug Barney on January 29, 20102 comments
Oracle held a press conference longer than a Joe Biden diatribe this week to explain to the world just what it intends to do with Sun. I'm talking five solid hours of exec-speak.
Now, I'm usually not happy when a cool, independent company gets bought, but Oracle is probably the best buyer for Sun. Like Sun, Oracle is feisty and pushes more envelopes than my local post office.
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Posted by Doug Barney on January 29, 20101 comments
Friends, your faithful scribe has been attacked, reviled, subjected to ridicule and hostility. Bob Evans, senior VP at TechWeb (which, incidentally, competes with nearly every property I run) came across my item about Oracle buying Sun.
In that item I said, "I admit it: I'm a huge fan of Sun Microsystems...But it soon may no longer be a company at all as the European Union this week approved Oracle's proposed $7.4 billion buyout. It's such a done deal that Larry Ellison is planning a Hugo Chavez-style five-hour company and press event next week on the matter."
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Posted by Doug Barney on January 27, 201021 comments
In 1999, while at Network World, Carolyn Marsan and I interviewed Vint Cerf about IPv6. Cerf was beseeching the entire industry to move as quickly a possible to IPv6 since IPv4 addresses were running out.
Thanks to a kludge or two, 11 years later there are still IPv4 addresses left -- but not many. Over 90 percent of all possible IPv4 addresses are in use. At this rate, all of them will be gone by 2013, says the Number Resource Organization.
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Posted by Doug Barney on January 27, 201012 comments
I used Notes in a past life and didn't much care for it, at least as far as pure e-mail goes. It was clunkier than my rusted-out '96 Ford Bronco (which is my daily driver). But many people love Notes, especially IBM, which is touting an upcoming version that's a bigger social butterfly than the late Truman Capote. (Remember when social butterflies actually had some brains?)
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Posted by Doug Barney on January 25, 20101 comments