Wednesday’s Whispers « A Software Insider's Point of View

Posts Tagged ‘Wednesday’s Whispers’

Wednesday’s Whispers: People Whispers – January 2010

Published on January 26, 2010 by R "Ray" Wang

PEOPLE WHISPERS: MOVES, PROMOTIONS, AND MILESTONES*

As always, thanks for your emails and alerts. If you’ve got a change or know of a promotion, keep dropping me a line! If you need a referral, and we’ve worked together in the past, don’t hesitate to reach out to me via Linked In.

Roger Bottum became VP of Marketing at SpringCM, a SaaS content management player this past November. Roger formerly served as Acresso Software’s SVP of Marketing. Other senior marketing roles include work for companies such as Axentis, Endeavor Information Systems, and Arrowsight. Other companies include System Software Associates , Accenture , and Pansophic Systems.

David Buckholtz has been promoted from Vice President, Enterprise Technology & Quality at Sony Pictures Entertainment to Vice-President, Divisional CIO of Enterprise & Corporate Technology at Sony Pictures. Previous roles include Senior Architect at GXS and Chief Architect and Six Sigma Blackbelt at General Electric.

Gerard Corbett, APR, Fellow, PRSA is now Board Director at ADP Technology (Asia) Ltd and Secretary and Member of the Board of Directors at Public Relations Society of America. Corbett brings significant PR experience with work as the Co-Chair, The 2008 International Conference at Public Relations Society of America, and VP and Genera Manager at Hitachi America, Ltd.

Michael Corkery was appointed as CFO for Deltek. Previous roles include serving as the CFO and Acting CEO for ICO Global Communications. Corkery’s experience reflects a telecommunications technology background with other executive roles at Current Group, LLC; Nextel Communications; Berliner Communications, XO Communications, and AT&T Wireless

Stephen DePooter is now Chief Information Officer at Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs. He brings significant IT and healthcare experience from serving as a System Director, Applications at Memorial Health System, IT Security Analyst at Horace Mann, IT Security Consultant at MSF&W, and various roles at Emory Healthcare.

Justin Floyd became the CEO and Co founder of RedCloud Bank in October 2009. Former roles include serving as an Investor at CCL Group plc and Investor and Chairman/CEO at Vecta

Bill Geist became President at Turning Point Management LLC in October 2009 after serving as COO, Global Services at CDC Software.com. Other former positions include CEO at Application Partners LLC; Senior Vice President at Headstrong, Inc.; Partner, Southeast Region at Wavebend Solutions, LLC (BDO Seidman consultancy); Partner, Branch Manager at Whittman-Hart; Director, Group Manager at Cambridge Technology Partners; VP, Information Technology & Services at Scientific Atlanta; and VP, Information Services at Reichhold.

Glenn Gruber is now AVP, Market Development, Travel Technologies at Ness Technologies. Glenn has served many marketing roles including AVP, Strategic Marketing at Symphony Services Corp.; Product Line Manager at Parlex Corporation; Director of Marketing – RFID/Smart Cards at Power Paper, Inc.;VP, Sales and Marketing at Golden Screens Interactive; and Director of Marketing and Business Development at Kyocera Electronics, Inc.

Alexis Karlin is now Digital Marketing Specialist at Neolane. Prior to Neolane, Alexis served as Web Producer from 2007 to 2009. Former roles include work as an Interactive Developer at Feinstein Kean Healthcare and Web Adminstrator at Cognos

Andrew Kisslo has an updated current title: Sr. Product Manager, Competitive Strategy, Software as a Service at Microsoft

Marina Kosmatos is now Marketing Communications Manager at Tagged. Her former roles include significant travel experience roles as Managing Editor at Offbeat Guides and Commissioning Editor- Caribbean Islands and Jamaica at Lonely Planet.

Joanne McCool became Executive Director at Gloucester County Chamber of Commerce in December 2009. McCool brings a track record of getting “projects” done. She’s served as an Advisory Board Member at PSVillage; Chief Operating Officer at Ternary Software; VP / General Manager (Evolve) at Primavera Systems, Inc.; and VP Human Resources at Primavera Systems.

Tamara Mendelsohn was promoted to Director of Marketing at Eventbrite. She brings tech marketing experiences from Apple and her work as an Senior Analyst at Forrester Research.

Michael O’Kelly rejoins as IT Director at International Aid in December 2009. Please make donations if you care to.

Jessie Paul is now CEO at PaulWriter. After a 5 year career as CMO of Wipro and 15 years in the corporate environment, Jessie’s teamed with Paul Writer to start her new venture. The new concern will build on her deep marketing experiences that include Head of Worldwide Marketing at iGATE Global Solutions; Global Brand Manager at Infosys Technologies; and account executive at Ogilvy & Mather Advertising

GV Rao has become Global Head – Oracle Alliances & BD at Mahindra Satyam

Bruce Richardson joins Infor as Chief Strategy Officer. The legendary IT analyst from AMR Research brings unparalleled experience as Infor makes major shifts in 2010.

Pascal Sero has updated his current title to VP Oracle Asia R&D Centers. He’s been with Oracle for more than 2 decades.

Joseph Stanhope is now Senior Analyst at Forrester Research. Stanhope brings various experiences from Alterian where he served as VP of Platform Strategy, Director of Global Product Marketing, and Director of Marketing. Other roles include VP of Marketing at MarketerNet, LLC and Senior Product Manager at Experian

Bob Suh is now Founder and CEO at OnCorps. Bob brings heavy technology expertise with past roles such as Chief Technology Strategist at Accenture; President, Consulting and SI at Perot Systems Corporation; and Managing Director at CSC Index

Jari Tavi became Head of Operations and Innovation at Loyalty Agent Ltd. ,a stealthy startup, in October 2009. Past roles include CEO and Partner at Hotelzon Technologies and Development; Head of Technology at Berling Capital; and CTO at BasWare. Jari brings a passion for new ideas and crucial startup thinking.

John Taschek has an updated current title to Vice President, Strategy at Salesforce.com

Anders Trolle-Schultz is now Chairman of the board at Eurocloud, Denmark. Anders has taken his passion for SaaS to another level and builds on experiences as a Sales Director at Crayon; Nordic Marketing & Business Development Manager at Norsoft A/S; and Management Consultant & Partner at Fornebu Consulting A/S

Mitch Wagner is now Principal at Mitch Wagner Communications. Mitch brings over 25 years of tech media experiences including many of the initial web and social initiatives at United Business Media/CMP.

Zia Yusuf is now an Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) at both Sutter Hill Ventures and Norwest Venture Partners. Zia brings a wealth of experiences including a 10 year career at SAP and experiences at the WorldBank.

Your POV

Got a scoop or something to share? Please post or send on to rwang0 at gmail dot com and we’ll keep your anonymity.

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions. However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

Wednesday’s Whispers: People Whispers November/December 2009

Published on December 16, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang

PEOPLE WHISPERS: MOVES, PROMOTIONS, AND MILESTONES*

Eliot Axelrod became Senior Account Exec at Graybow Communications Group in September 2009. Eliot’s served a variety of account executive roles at technology companies such as Unimax Systems, Saratoga Systems, Aurigin Systems, Lotus/IBM, and Apple Computer

Michelle Blackmer has updated her current title to Senior Director, Marketing – Healthcare at Initiate Systems . Prior to Initiate, Michelle served as a marketing manager and project manager at GE Healthcare.

Scott Bonneau has updated their current title to VP IT, Service Management at Dr Pepper Snapple Group. Past positions have leveraged his management consulting skills and include VP Global IT PMO at Cadbury Schweppes plc, Principal at Booz Allen Hamilton, and Senior Consultant at Andersen Consulting.

Anirban Chakraborty has updated his current title to Analyst Relations, Strategic Marketing at Wipro Technologies. Anirban has worked as a consultant at IBM and served as a Systems Analyst at TCS

Eric Christiansen became a Director at BlackRock. Previous roles include an 8 year stint in various architecture and technology roles at Barclays Global Investors. Eric brings extensive experience in software architecture with roles at ITT Gilfillan, Rockwell International, TRW, and Digital Equipment Corporation

Jeff Comport has become a Senior Vice President with Lawson Software for Product Management. Jeff will be responsible for overseeing all of Lawson‘s product lines. Jeff brings to Lawson over 16 years of industry analyst experiences and software management expertise from Integral Systems, Inc (application software) and Criterion Incorporated (application software).C

Ridgely Evers is now on the Board of Directors at SCORE. Ridgely has been focused on helping small businesses succeed. His current roles include serving as a Managing Partner at Establishment Capital Partners and Tapit Partners. Previously, he founded NetBooks and worked at Intuit building out QuickBooks and their Online Financial System.

Deb Fitzgerald new CIO for Deltek. Deb joins Deltek from Verisign where she served as the VP of Information Technology.

Justin Floyd became the CEO of InvestChange.com in October. The cloud startup focuses on emerging and developing markets. He founded the company in May 2009. Previous executive roles include Investor and Chairman at CCL Group plc and Investor and Chairman/CEO at Vecta.

Chuck Gillespie is now Adjunct Professor at IUPUI. He also serves as the President of Vigor and has focused on the HR technology space as VP of HR Technology at Peoplebase.

Stephen Harvey left his role as a Country Manager for datango. Havey joined DNA Stream and builds on his management experiences at Sword DDS LTD and Crestec UK LTd.

Laurie Henneborn became Global Research Lead for Technology at Accenture in September 2009. Previous roles include Global Research Lead for Outsourcing at Accenture, Information Specialist – Banking Channels at AT Kearney, Head Information Specialist at Bates Advertising, and Legal Research Assistant at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison

Michael Hickins has joined as a News Editor at the WSJ.com at Dow Jones. Michael brings significant technology media experience as the Executive Editor at eWeek, Executive Editor at Ziff Davis Enterprise, Senior Editor at Jupitermedia, Senior editor at Thomson Legal & Regulatory, Editorial Director at Multex, Senior editor at Fairchild Publications, and others.

Lauren Hong was promoted from Account Development Manager to an Account Manager at Forrester Research.

Robert Humphrey was named Infor’s Chief Marketing Officer in November. Humphrey brings 30 years of marketing and tech experience. He most recenlty served as Senior Vice-President of WorldWide Field Marketing at McAfee. Other roles include executive positions at Citadel Security Solutions, i2 Technologies, and OpenDesign, Inc.

Charlie Isaacs became President at SOA Press in October 2009. Prior to this role, Charlie served as the Chief Customer Officer and Chief Technology for KANA, CTO at Primus Knowledge Solutions, VP/GM Help Desk Lab at Computer Associates (formerly Platinum Technology, and VP of Engineering atGTE Government Systems.

Joseph Loveless joined the Board of Directors at Clear Stake Capital, LLC in August 2009. He’s currently CEO of Clear Stake, an energy management and carbon abatement concern. Previous experiences include roles at Product Marketing for Deltek, Product Marketing / Field Marketing Director for CA, Inc., and Director, Professional Services for Entex Information Svcs / Siemens.

Jim Lundy left Gartner to join Saba Software as their VP and GM for Collaboration Software. Jim previoulsy served roles as Managing Vice President and VP, Distinguished Analyst at Gartner.

Ed Maguire is now Senior Analyst at CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets / CALYON Securities (USA) Inc. Ed’s served previous roles including the Director of Technology Investment Banking and Senior Director at Merrill Lynch.

Subraya Mallya became Advisory Board Member at Sage Scholars Program, UC Berkeley in August 2009

Hellen Omwando became General Manager Light & Health Venture at Philips in June 2009

John Tae Park became a Senior Business Systems Analyst at Toshiba America Medical Systems in December. JT has served various roles including Oracle Delivery Consultant at IBM Global Services, Sr. Product Manager at Oracle Corporation, and Consultant at Accenture.

Sanjay Poonen is now EVP & GM of Business User Sales at SAP. Sanjay brings expensive managerial and operational experience from previous roles as EVP & GM of Performance Optimization Apps at SAP, Vice President of Line of Business Operations at Symantec Corporation, Vice President of Strategic Operations at VERITAS, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Corporate Officer at Informatica Corporation, and Director of Product Marketing and Strategy, Founder at Alphablox Corporation

Daniel Seaman became Director at Mongoose Cricket in September 2009. Seaman previously headed product management at WGSN and worked in Marketing Strategy & Product Management at Forrester Research

Stefan Schulz is being promoted to chief financial officer of Lawson Software Jan. 1, 2010. He succeeds Robert Schriesheim.

Robert Schriesheim, departs Lawson to become CFO of Illinois-based Hewitt Associates, Inc. Schriesheim will continue to serve on the Lawson board as a non-employee director.

Kevin Schmidt became Director, Product Marketing/Management, Application Platform at Sun Microsystems in August 2009. Kevin has extensive experience in Master Data Management and other infrastructure technologies.

David Stanley is now Vice President, Business Development and Sales at Altimeter Group. Previous roles include VP, Sales at ARInsights, Regional Director at MX Logic, and Director, Business Development, Managed Services at Synergy International

Sriram Venkat became Practice Head, CRM at Wipro Technologies in October 2009. Sriram has served as a practice manager for SAP CRM among his many roles over the past decade at Wipro.

Thomas Wailgum has updated his current title to Senior Editor | CIO.com at IDG Enterprise. Tom brings over a decade of experience covering business and technology issues for the enterprise.

Jonathan Zhu is now Vice President, Asia at Ken Clark International. Jonathan brings extensive financial services and Chinese market experiences with senior positions at HORIBA International, Asia Pacific at The EOP Group Inc, and Allied Irish Bank

Your POV

Got a scoop or something to share? Please post or send on to rwang0 at gmail dot com and we’ll keep your anonymity.

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions. However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

Wednesday’s Whispers: People Whispers October 2009

Published on October 21, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang

PEOPLE WHISPERS: MOVES, PROMOTIONS, AND MILESTONES*

Congratulations to all! Good to see that the job scenarios continue to improve in software/tech as a number of individuals made organizational changes and promotions. As always, thanks for your emails and alerts. If you’ve got a change or know of a promotion, keep dropping me a line! If you need a referral, and we’ve worked together in the past, don’t hesitate to reach out to me via Linked In.

Steve Apfelberg is now Vice President of Marketing at Yammer, Inc. Steve brings a wealth of marketing experiences from serving last as Chief Marketing Officer, SVP of Business Development at Callidus Software Other software experiences include time with Siebel, Remedy, and Oracle.

Rose Aulik was recently promoted from strategic business development manager to Outsourcing Business Solutions Manager for Epicor.

Sachin Bery is now Principal Consultant at Infosys Technologies Ltd. Sachin has built an 8-year career at Infosys serving as a consultant.

Jim Bozzini has been promoted to Senior Vice President, Operations and Services for Workday.

Jim Dellamore joins Deltek as Executive Vice President for Global Services from GXS where he served as a Senior Vice President of Global Solutions Delivery. Prior to working at GXS, Mr. Dellamore was Group Vice President, Consulting, at Oracle Corporation, where he managed the $450 million PeopleSoft consulting business.

Ned Desmond became Advisor at Silent Cal Productions in July 2009. Former roles include serving as President at Time Inc. Interactive, President and Editor at Business 2.0, and a Vice president at Infoseek.com.

Phil Fehrst left AMR Research to become an AVP for strategy with Cognizant Technologies. The former star analyst brings significant experience in the IT BPO and outsourcing contract space and will be reporting directly to the CEO.

Tim Fortier named IFS North America Vice President of Sales. Fortier brings 20 years of sales management experience from J.D. Edwards, PeopleSoft, AFS Technologies and most recently Borland Software.

Chuck Gillespie is now Adjunct Professor at IUPUI. Chuck was responsible for HR technology at Peoplebase and served as President of Vigor.

Simon Griffiths joined SYSPRO as a Product and Industry Marketing Consultant. Griffiths previously served as a SYSPRO reseller in South Africa. Other roles include stints at JD Edwards and a Microsoft Dynamics NAV partner.

Ray Grigsby joins Rimini Street as Vice President of Global Support Services Delivery for JD Edwards Software Products. Grigsby’s served previous roles as a Vice President for JD Edwards Support services. Grigsby was the executive overseeing the implementation, upgrade, and support of a full range of World and OneWorld (EnterpriseOne) releases for the largest and most complex domestic and global implementations.

Brian Haven became Vice President, Strategy at iCrossing in July 2009. Brian brings social computing and customer engagement experiences from Forrester, Catapult Thinking, and InnoVentry.

Tony Kender rejoins SAP as a National VP Sales at SAP America. Tony served roles as a Senior VP at Oracle, Director at SAP, and Senior Director at ADP.

Alex Koshy is now Business Development Executive at Synaptris. Koshi served previous roles as a Pre-Sales Consultant for MS Dynamics ERP and Resource Lead for Microsoft Dynamics Competancy at Mahindra Satyam.

Kirk Laughlin became Founder/ Editorial Director at Nearshore Americas in June 2009. Kirk’s served senior roles as Managing Director/ VP of Live Events, Senior Editorial Director, Custom Media at Ziff Davis Enterprise, Editor in Chief at America’s Network Magazine, and Editor-in-Chief at Cygnus Business Media

Leighanne Levensaler joins Workday as Vice President, HCM Strategy. She formerly served as a principal analyst covering Talent Management for Bersin & Associates. Prior to joining Bersin & Associates, she led the Learning Consulting Practice at SystemLink Enterprise Solutions. Leighanne has also held positions at SmartForce, Edutrek International/AUI and Deloitte Consulting.

Emily Marchant is now Cofounder | Investor Relationship Manager at the FundingPartnership. Previous roles include a stint as Global Business Development Manager FLB at Forrester Research, Business Development Manager at Dianomi, Sales Manager at Emedia, and various roles at Informa Telecoms and Media.

Jeff Onesto is now Director of Product Marketing at OptionEase. Jeff’s brings industry experiences from his various positions as Director of Sales & Marketing at Advanced Systems Integration, Business Development Executive at Collins Computing, and Business Development Manager at Jefferson Wells International

Milind Padalkar has updated their current title to Global Practice Head – Oracle at HCL America. Padalkar previously served as the Senior Vice President & Head of Enterprise Applications at Patni Computer Systems.

Mahesh Rajasekharan is now Chief Operating Officer at SumTotal Systems. He served 12 years at i2 with roles ranging from Vice President of High Tech Industry Group, Senior Director Operations and Solution Sales, and Senior Director for High Tech Industry Marketing.

Norman Scobie is now SAP Project/Integration Manager at HP Enterprise Services. Previous work includes Aerospace & Defense Industry Solution Expert at SAP, Program Manager at Eurofighter, and Software Manager at BAE Systems

Mike Stankey joins Workday as president and COO from Greylock Partners. Mike spent five years as chairman and CEO of PolyServe, a storage virtualization software company. Prior to PolyServe, Mike was senior vice president of North American sales for PeopleSoft, driving more than $1 billion in sales and services revenues.

Laurene Stevens became Product Strategy Analyst at Ultimate Software in May 2009. Laurene’s served as a senior applications consultant for Sage Software.

Jason Zintak became the Executive Vice President for Sales and Marketing at JDA Software on August 18th, 2009. Zintak most recently served as the executive vice president of sales at HCL Axon. Other senior-level software sales executive and management includde roles at Capgemini, SAP and Blue Martini Software.

Your POV

Got a scoop or something to share? Please post or send on to rwang0 at gmail dot com and we’ll keep your anonymity.

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions. However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

Wednesday’s Whispers: July 2009 – People Whispers

Published on July 22, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang

PEOPLE WHISPERS: MOVES, PROMOTIONS, AND MILESTONES*

Congratulations to all! Few movements in July reflect the slow pace of summer vacation. As always, thanks for your emails and alerts. If you’ve got a change or know of a promotion, keep dropping me a line! If you need a referral, don’t hesitate to reach out to me via Linked In.

Bill Ahmed has been promoted in July to Consultant from Associate Consultant at Forrester Research. Bill has taken on progressive roles during his 4 year tenure.

Brian Benedict became Sales Director at Mindshare Technologies in January 2009. Prior experiences include work at InfoCurrent as a Business Development lead.

Anindya Chaudhuri became Practice Director – Platform HRO Solutions at Tata Consultancy Services in April 2009. He previously served as a Business Development Manager, HRO. Anindya has been wtih Tata Consultancy Services over 10 years.

Melanie Dunn is now a Contract Recruiter at Salesforce.com. Prior to work at SalesForce.com, Melanie served contract recruiting positions with Workday and IAC and also served as a Senior Recruiter for Siebel and PeopleSoft

Joel Jeselsohn was promoted from Director of Finance to VP Finance & Operations at ClickSoftware, Inc. in May 2009. Joel brings over a decade of financials experience in the high tech world.

Todd Kiker PMP, MBA became PMO at Leap Wireless in May 2009. Kiker previously served as the Director of Professional Services Western US at Tectura and has had other roles including: Sr Technical Project Manager at DHAP Digital, System Architect at EDS, and IT Manager at Advanced Information Resources.

Robert Michon became Co-founder and VP Technology at Taïga Infrastructure Services. His 28 years of IT experience includes roles as a Consultant at R3D Information & Technolog, VP of IT Services at Taleo, and VP of Oracle Solutions Centre at DMR Consulting

Rebecca Morris became Consultant at InfoReliance in March 2009. She previously applied her PMO experience to work at Constellation Energy as a Director/Project Manager

Milind Padalkar became SVP and Head Oracle Universe at HCL Technologies in February 2009. He had served for 5 years as the Senior Vice President & Head – Enterprise Applications at Patni Computer.

Chris Silva was promoted from Analyst to Senior Analyst for Enterprise Infrastrcuture at Forrester Research. His coverage areas include telecom infrastructure and mobility.

Brett Wallace left Forrester after serving various sales roles over the past 7 years. Brett has taken over the role as Vice President of Sales at Zoom Information.

Your POV

Got a scoop or something to share? Please post or send on to rwang0 at gmail dot com and we’ll keep your anonymity.

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions. However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

Wednesday’s Whispers: Corporate Whispers and Monthly Market Trends – June 2009

Published on June 24, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang

CORPORATE WHISPERS AND MONTHLY MARKET TRENDS*
Starting this month, we’ll be splitting the trends in Corporate Whispers from the People Whispers series. Catch the latest monthly random thoughts, trend points, and corporate trends. Hearing from twitterati, software execs, and industry experts about:

User trends

Recent win by SUSEN Software over SAP enhances validity of the used software market in the EU. Other players like Used Software have battled Microsoft to open up competition in the market. Many CIO’s hope that Nellie Kroes at the EU will investigate the lack of third party maintenance options and anti-competitive behaviour in some segments of enterprise software (i.e. Oracle DB, SAP, etc.) before her term expires.
Hybrid deployment options continue to gain ground. Conversations with over 101 software decision makers highlight a shift from single source vendor strategies. Move to support hybrid deployments benefit enterprise service bus and integration providers such as Boomi, Pervasive, and Informatica.
Japanese CIO’s finally realizing that they need to break free from their existing ERP software vendor relationships. SaaS options now in consideration. Recent advancements by NTT to host Zoho, Siemens’ 420K employee move to Success Factors, and Flextronics 240k employee deal with Workday have shifted perception that SaaS can’t solve large enterprise requirements.
Conversations with over 100 EMEA decision makers show a big push to move away from a single source vendor strategy. Third party maintenance, virtualization, SaaS, Open Source, and BPO top lists of planned initiatives in 2009/2010.
Support for Apple Macs in corporate environments gaining significant traction. Despite shipment gains, lack of real corporate support models (i.e. go to the Apple Store to fix your MacBook) do not engender the backing of corporate IT support departments.

Software vendor and system integrators trends

Ratios of new license to maintenance revenues shift from 1:2 to 1:4 and in some cases 1:5. Enterprise software vendors now in a better position to convert perpetual business models to subscription business models. Do they have the guts and board approval?
Enterprise software vendors slowly adopting Web 2.0 and consumer tech innovations. Look for improved developments from IBM WebSphere, Microsoft .NET, Oracle Fusion Middleware in the next 6 to 12 months
New Stack Wars will focus on PaaS (Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure Services Platform, Google App Engine, NetSuite Business Operating System, Sales Force Force.com platform) vs On-Premise (HP, IBM WebSphere, Microsoft .NET, Oracle Fusion Middleware,) vs Open Source Stacks (BitRock, Covalent, Novell, OpenLogic, Optaraos, Red Hat & JBoss, rPath, Simula Labs, SourceLabs, SpikeSource, Unisys, Virtuas, and Zend.)
Indian System Integrators competiting for market share in Europe, Middle East, and Africa as they shift away from the North American market.
Many enterprises have looked into acquisition and partnerships withAll Scripts – Misys, Cerner, Epic Systems, McKesson, MEDITECH, , NextGen, and Siemens Healthcare (Shared Medical Systems) in order to get in on the proposed healthcare and electronic medical record (EMR) proposals.
One of the first SaaS busts has occurred with LucidEra going under and competitor GoodData offering free safe harbor. Is now the time to make sure SaaS escrows exist?

Your POV

Got a scoop or something to share? What are you hearing in the market? Please post or send on to rwang0 at gmail dot com and we’ll keep your anonymity.

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions. However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

Wednesday’s Whispers: People Whispers – June 2009

Published on June 17, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang

PEOPLE WHISPERS: MOVES, PROMOTIONS, AND MILESTONES*

Starting this month, we’ll be splitting the trends in Corporate Whispers from the People Whispers series. Catch the latest monthly random thoughts, trend points, and corporate trends here. For the latest on career moves, promotions, and milestones, stay tuned here.

Congratulations to all! Thanks for your emails and alerts. If you’ve got a change or know of a promotion, keep dropping me a line! If you need a referral, don’t hesitate to reach out to me via Linked In.

Jean-Sebastien Bardet became Application Portfolio Manager at Orange Business Services in March 2009. He is responsible for the Management of Portal and Business Intelligence domains within the health business unit of Orange Business Services – Almerys. Jean-Sebastien formerly was an advanced technology architect at Michelin and has served consulting roles at Steria, Sylis Group, and Cambridge Technology Partners.

Brian Benedict became Business Development Director at Aite Group in January 2009. Brian was a Star sales professional at Forrester Research and joins former Forrester Research alumni such as Ron Shevlin. Previous experiences include serving as the Board Member at AIIM International, Board of Directors at ARMA International, and Business Development Lead at InfoCurrent.

David Benson leaves his Global CIO position at News Corporation to serve as the Chief Information Officer at Progress Software reporting to President and Chief Executive Officer Rick Reidy. David brings more than 25 years of business and IT experience to Progress and has held multiple CIO positions at GE where he led significant organizational and process change.

Aneesh Chopra was confirmed as the nation’s first Chief Technology Officer on May 21st by unanimous consent.. Chopra will also serve as the Associate Director for the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy. Aneesh previously served as the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Secretary of Technology.

Sally Cohen leaves Forrester Research where she last served as an analyst for Environmentally & Socially Responsible Consumer Product Strategy at Forrester Research. Her new roles will be a User Experience Researcher at AnswerLab.

Brian Carpizo joins as CEO of Eventric. Brian formerly led Junction Solutions, Inc. as the Founder and CEO. Previous roles include management positions at consulting practices such as Charter Consulting, Future Next Consulting, Horizon Consulting, and Accenture. Eventric focuses on technologies to improve the live event experience.

Aileen Chen is now an Integration Manager for Strategic Accounts at Marin Software. Her previous position includes multiple roles at RedEnvelope.com.

Guy Courtin joins as the Director of Marketing at SmartOps. Guy leaves i2 Technologies where he served as a Senior Manager in marketing.

Ned Desmond became President at GoSportn, Inc. a new online community for outdoor sports enthusiasts. Ned has served senior roles as President at Time Inc. Interactive, President and Editor at Business 2.0, and a Vice President at Infoseek.com.

Madhu Ghosh takes on a new job with ADP as the Sr. Director, Marketing. Madhu was previously the Executive Director for Product Management & Business Operations at The College Board. Other roles include seving as an Assistant Vice President for Program Management and Product Strategy at Dun & Bradstreet.

Kosin Huang moves from her Senior Manager, Competitive Strategy role into the newly created Office of Marketing Excellence at SAP role. Her focus will be to design and build global initiatives to drive pipeline acceleration for SAP’s Global Field Marketing organization and define KPIs and benchmark best practices for measuring marketing success. Kosin previously held analyst roles at The Yankee Group and Harbor Research.

Abhyudaya Kanoria became Manager, Corporate Strategy at Aditya Birla Management Corporation in March 2009. He previously served as a Business Analyst for Tata Consultancy Services Ltd.

Esteban Kolsky became a Consultant at Managed Experiences, Loyal Customers in April 2009. Esteban’s a Star Analyst in the field of customer service and previously served as a Vice President and Practice Leader at eVergance, Research Director at Gartner Group, and CTO of Tiedosta.

Ashwani Kumar left Oracle in January 2009 to become the CEO of a stealth analytics reinvented company. Ashwani held product strategy and development management responsibilities for industry specific BI initiatives at Oracle.

Paul Lambert in February became the Global Head of Architecture at Hoffmann-La Roche. He now leads the Information Architecture, Application Architecture and Technology (Infrastructure) Architecture groups for Roche Pharma. Previous roles include Global Head of Application Architecture at Hoffmann-La Roche and Astra Zeneca.

Eric Lundquist has been named Vice President for Strategic Content at Ziff Davis Enterprise. Eric previously served as Content Director for New Media Products at IDG. Eric brings decades of experience from serving as the Editor-in-Chief at eWEEK Magazine (formerly PC Week, Editor-in-Chief at Ziff Davis Enterprise, and Editor-in-Chief PC Week/eWeek at Ziff-Davis

Michael McDermott has been promoted from Director to Vice President of Corporate Development at QL2 Software. Mike’s served roles as Senior Product Manager at Amazon.com, Competitive Intelligence Manager at Microsoft, and Competitive Intelligence Senior Manager at PeopleSoft.

Michael Murphy is now Vice President Business Development at Martiz Research Canada. Mike served as Star Sales Professional at Forrester responsible for the Canadian IT Vendor market. Prior to Forrester, Mike was at IBM.

Thomas Raschke has left Forrester Research to join Verizon Business as a Senior Product Marketing Manager in Government, Risk, and Compliance. Thomas served as an analyst at both Forrester Research and IDC in previous career experiences.

Yuval Shavit is now QA Engineer at Kiva Systems. He formerly served as an assistant editor at Tech Target for searchITChannel.

Inhi Cho Suh was promoted in January 2009 to a Vice President of Product Strategy at IBM. She’s responsible for driving portfolio strategy, marketing, and industry solutions for IBM’s information management division which is comprised on DB2, Informix, Optim, Filenet, InfoSphere, and Cognos. Previous roles at IBM include serving as a Vice President of Management Marketing and Director of BPM and strategy.

Doug Topken becomes the Director of Global eCommerce Programs at Elsevier – Division of Reed Elsevier. Previous roles include serving as the Vice President for Business Relationship Management.

Donna Troy was promoted to VP and GM of Large Enterprise Americas at Dell in January 2009. She previously served as the Vice President and General Manager for Corporate Accounts Division. Donna brings a wealth of channel and sales experience as EVP of Global SME Indirect Channels at SAP, EVP of Global SMB and channel sales at McAfee, and CEO of Partnerware.

Carl Zetie has become a Member of Foundation Strategy Committee at Eclipse Foundation. Carl currently serves as a strategist at IBM and Advisory Council Member at Utest, the usability community. Previous roles include serving as a Star Analyst at Giga Information Group and Forrester Research.

Your POV

Got a scoop or something to share? Please post or send on to rwang0 at gmail dot com and we’ll keep your anonymity.

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions. However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

Wednesday’s Whispers: The Word On The Street – May 2009

Published on May 20, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang

PEOPLE WHISPERS: MOVES, PROMOTIONS, AND MILESTONES*

Bronwyn J. Allen became Director, Analyst Relations at Fujitsu America, Inc. in January 2009. Bronwyn brings over 20 years of AR and marketing communications experience for professional services firms.

Scott Azzolina is now VP Marketing at Connectria, an IT outsourcing and hosting company. Scott brings over 25 years of experience from roles at Primavera Systems, Gemplus(Axalto), PECO Energy Company, Unisys, Scott Paper, and NCR.

Jonathan Bennett became Sales Executive – West at Astadia, a SaaS professional services firm, in March 2009. Bennett is a driving force in solutions selling in the enterprise software industry with SaaS pedigree as a Managing Director at EnablePath and Sr. Account Executive at Salesforce.com. Previous roles include Manager of presales at P ilot Software (now SAP), Manager of Professional Services (BSG) at E*TRADE Financial, Senior Technical Sales Consultant at Personify, Inc. and management Consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers

Jim Bork named Senior Vice President of World Wide Sales for Epicor Software. Jim brings 16 years of sales and sales management experience including international sales for Epicor. Jim’s expertise includes go-to-market strategies and sales management experience.

Sean Cantelon is now Managing Director at O.C. Tanner. Sean last served as a seasoned star sales professional focused on building relationships and delivering solutions to his clients for Forrester Research and Giga Research. Other experiences include working as an Account Manager at MCI Systemhouse.

Stephane Carrez became Head of Planzone R&D at Augeo Software in November 2008. Stephane has held many technical roles at Solsoft, Sun Micrososystems, and Chorus Systems.

Chayson Comfort is now Business Development Executive at Statera, a professional services firm focused on business performance. Chayson served as as star sales professional and National Account Executive at Forrester Research. Chayson also worked at Verizon Information Services.

Pete Daffern became CEO at ClairMail, Inc in January 2009. As CEO of Pursima, he led the successful acquisition by D&B in October 2007. Pete brings executive experiences as President of AIM technology, VP of Business Development for Vitria, and General Manager of Seagate EMEA.

Mike Frichol became Principal at Ingistics, LLC in February 2009. Mike brings a wealth of executive level industry marketing and product marketing experiences from Infor, Microsoft Business Solutions, ESI, and Dun & Bradstreet Software.

Jason Gatoff in March 2009 became Director of Marketing and Strategic Alliances at M-Factor, Inc. a profit and revenue optimization software firm. Jason previously served as Program Director and Peer Forum advisor for AMR Research’s SAP clients. Other marketing roles include work in Analyst Relations and Corporate Marketing for PeopleSoft and i2 Technologies. Jason also served as a Client Relationship Manager at Forrester Research.

Rob Howes is now Assistant Director of Admissions / International Recruitment at DeVry University. Rob served as an Account Manager for Federal Government at Forrester Research. Previous higher education experience include roles at CDI College.

Alp Hug became President & CEO of Alpland in February 2009. Alp was formerly the Senior Vice President at Open Text for ECM Suite Technology. He came to OpenText via the Hummingbird acquisition where he was the VP for Strategic Business Development. Alp served other high tech executive roles at Delano Technology and TOR Computerized Systems.

Narayan Iyer is now Director at Cognizant Technology Solutions. Prior to his new role, he was the head of banking, financial services & insurance sales in India for Tata Consulting Services and had served various roles there for 5 years.

Charlotte Marchand is now Directrice Commerciale Adjointe at Neteven. Charlotte served sales roles at Forrester in Australia and France.

Suhail Maqsood became Board Member – Projects SIG at Oracle Applications Users Group in February 2009

Tamara Mendelsohn became Community and Marketing Manager at Eventbrite in January 2009. Tamara was Forrester’s star analyst in eCommerce. She’s currently finishing her last year of her MBA at The Sloan School of Management (MIT).

Doug Merritt was promoted to EVP & GM Premier Customer Network at SAP in January 2009. Doug also serves as the President of SAP Laps and is a Corporate Officer for SAP. Senior executive roles throughout the tech industry include VP & GM of HCM at PeopleSoft, CEO and Founder of Icarian, and Sales Manager at BMC.

Clark Newby joins Workday as the CMO and Vice President of Marketing. Clark joined Workday from Fortify where he served as a Vice President of Marketing. Other marketing roles include Poly Serve, Mercury Interactive, Kintana, and Silicon Graphics.

Michael Pietrini named CFO and EVP of Finance and Administration at Epicor Software in April 2009. Pietrini’s 14 year tenure at Epicor includes roles in sales management, consulting, customer service, product development, marketing, and business development. His responsibilities include sales operations, legal, human resources, IT and investor relations.

Eduardo Sanchez returns to MicroStrategy as the Executive Vice President for Strategic Development. Sanchez previously was the EVP for Global Sales at Lawson, the COO of Cartesis, and a Corporate Vice President for World Wide Sales and Services and Vice President for International Operations at MicroStrategy

Brian Shelver became Senior Sales Engineer at Topaz Bridge in February 2009. Brian played industry marketing and solutions selling roles at Kineticsware, Inc., Microsoft Business Solutions, and SAP America.

Shivani Shinde has been promoted to Principal Correspondent at Business Standard. Shivani brings a rich set of journalism experience serving as a Senior Correspondent and Acting Bureau Chief of the Indian Express group and Senior Reporter at the Times of India.

Eric Steele joins Veritude, A Fidelity Investments Company in Business Development. Steele was a star sales professional at Forrester focusing on building strong relationships and solution selling. Other sales experiences include sales roles at Innovative.

Patric Timmermans now serves as a VP Marketing at KPA, LLC a boutique HR and Environmental Compliance professional services firm. Patrick’s previous roles include serving as a Senior Director Industry and Product Marketing at Infor, and various marketing roles at SSA Global and a a Principal Architect at Baan.

Joel Wecksell became Managing Director at The Skills Connection in January 2009. Joel served as a Global Managing Vice President, Global Research Group Vice President and Vice President and Services Director for Business Applications at Gartner Group Inc.

Hannah Young was promoted to Senior Account Executive at Waggener Edstrom. Hannah has served many high tech sales professional positions including Account Executive at Forrester Research, Oracle Corporation, Cydcor, and Opinion Research Corporation International. Hannah focuses on building strong relationships and finding win-win solutions.

CORPORATE WHISPERS
Hearing from twitterati, software execs, and industry experts about:

High demand for third party maintenance option for Oracle Database, Oracle EBS, Infor, and SAP products.
SaaS acquisition being sought by IBM, Oracle, HP and SAP.
Hardware vendors such as Cisco and HP looking at adjuncts into the software space.
Telecom vendors such as AT&T, Bell Canada, BT, and France Telecom looking at enterprise software plays to complement services and data center operations.
Micro-vertical vendors being drawn into more partnerships with Microsoft, IBM, SAP, and Oracle (MISO).
Partner opportunities with the large vendors at an all time high. Lots of MDF and support unlike in past eras.

Got a scoop or something to share? Please post or send on to rwang0 at gmail dot com and we’ll keep your anonymity.

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions. However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

Wednesday’s Whispers: The Word On the Street – April 2009

Published on April 8, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang

PEOPLE WHISPERS: MOVES, PROMOTIONS, AND MILESTONES*

Richard Barnett joins Fine Solutions as a Vice President for Business Development. Richard last served as the CMO at Kineticsware, Inc and served as an evangelist for the Microsoft Dynamics product lines as Director of Product Marketing.

Alan Bowling leaves his post as CIO of Northern Foods and joins the Training and Development Agency for Schools as CIO. Alan also serves as the Chairman of the very independent and influential SAP UK & Ireland Users Group.

Max Efimov became Director of Emerging Technologies at SITA CORP in November 2008. Previous roles include serving as a Manager of Enterprise Solutions – SAP for BearingPoint, Enterprise Solutions Architect at Tesoro Corp and Lead Systems Specialist at Valero Energy Corp.

Bill Geist has been promoted to Executive Vice President of Services at CDC Software. Bill formerly served as the SVP of Customer Services. Bill brings a wealth of management consulting, staffing and professional services experiences with several senior roles as a Partner at Tatum, L.L.C., CEO of Application Partners, L.L.C., Senior Vice President for Headstrong, Inc., Partner of Whittman-Hart, Inc., Director at Cambridge Technology Partners, and VP of IT and Services for Scientific Atlanta.

Aloke Ghosh has been appointed as the new CFO for Systime.

Peter Graf is now Chief Sustainability Officer at SAP. Peter served as the Executive Vice President for Marketing at SAP Labs.

Allison Guidette became VP & GM at Thomson Reuters in January 2009. Prior to Thomson Reuters, Allison served as Senior Vice President of Product Management at Merrill Corporation, Vice President of Business Law at Thomson West, and Senior Director at Corporate Executive Board.

Christof Herzog became Manager Customer Segmentation Fachleiter Kundensegmentierung at Deutsche Telekom in January 2009. Past roles include Principal Analyst at Vodafone and Senior Quantitative Analyst at Forrester Research.

Indu Khattar brings strong operational experiences to SYSTIME as the COO. Indu draws upon 2 decades of senior management experience with Fujitsu, ICIM, and Wipro

Tom Kucharvy serves as the CEO at Beyond IT, Inc. in January 2009. Tom bring a wealth of star analyst skills from Ovum where he was an Senior Vice President and from his experiences in building Summit Strategies as President and CEO.

Norman Liang leaves Fox Interactive Media (Photobucket) to join stealth startup Fire-Exit. Norm currently advises TripJane and the Martini Media Network. Prior to Photobucket, Norm served a Business Development role at Nokia.

Justin Mckenna is now a Business Development Representative at CIBER. Justin’s experiences include roles as a Business Development Executive at One Technologies and Account Manager at Forrester Research.

Vinay Nair joins IBM Cognos as an ERP market strategist. At International Data Corporation (IDC), Vinay served as the Research Manager for the Canadian Enterprise Applications market and a Senior Research Analyst for the Middle East and Africa regions.

Sean O’Neill leaves uTANGO to join GMI as Vice President of product and program management. Sean has served executive roles in product management including seven years at Amazon.

Matt Pawl was promoted in March 2009 to Vice President of Marketing at Hayes Technology Group. Matt previously was the marketing director.

Anita Rao joins Symantec with the Global ERP Systems team. Anita bring senior IT experiences from Visa, Garage Technology Ventures, Jamcracker, Oracle, Merrill Lynch, and Bear Stearns.

Richard (Rick) Reidy has been promoted from COO to President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Progress Software Corporation. Reidy bring both a products and management background to the position.

Joel Rosenberger joins GMI as Vice President of Engineering. Joel bring experience from Amazon‘s Web Services team as well as roles as technical diplomat at Microsoft, CTO of TransLink Software, and Senior Architect at Attachmate.

Dave Sampson takes on the role of Vice President for demand generation and customer experience at GMI‘s marketing strategies. Dave was previously vice president of marketing for Sampa Corporation.

Eilleen Shields takes on new responsibility as a Business Development Manager at Planpower a UXC company. Prior roles include senior sales positions with SAP, Forrester Research, and Jupiter Research.

Michael Sotnick moved to ActivIdentity in December 2008. As Executive Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Field Operations, Michael will put his sales, channel, and partner enablement experiences from SAP and Veritas to work.

Chloe Stromberg is now a Senior Survey Research Manager at comScore, Inc. Chloe brings analytical and survey experience from work at IdeaLab and the University of Michigan.

Mike Thoma became CTO and CMO at Blink Logic Inc. in December 2008. Previous experiences include roles as a special advisor to the CEO at Blink Logic and VP of Product Marketing at Actuate Corporation.

Angus Thomson takes on a new role at Intuit as VP & General Manager of the Grow Your Business Division. Angus formerly led Intuit’s Mid-Market group as VP & General Manager.

Chris Townsend joins i-Nova Software as their VP of Marketing.

CORPORATE WHISPERS

Hearing from leading CIO’s and VP’s at technology firms:

Many clients refusing to pay maintenance fees and have let contracts lapse
Vendors fearful of the high interest in third party maintenance. Some customers considering anti-trust suits in EU and US
Virtualization, Business Process Outsourcing, and SaaS seen as cost saving investments
Interest in SOA on the decline, but party faithful still in large numbers
Gov contracting, healthcare, compliance, project based solutions, and BI remain hot investment sectors for M&A

Got a scoop or something to share? Please post or send on to rwang0 at gmail dot com and we’ll keep your anonymity.

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions. However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

Wednesday’s Whispers: The Word On The Street – March 2009

Published on March 4, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang

PEOPLE WHISPERS: MOVES, PROMOTIONS, AND MILESTONES*

Nigel Alcock is now the new Sales Director for the UK and Ireland at Lawson Software. Nigel joins Lawson from previous roles at SAP.

David Boulanger is now GLG Educator at Gerson Lehrman Group. David was formerly an industry analyst and research director for CRM at Aberdeen Group.

Eric Chow became an International Business Consultant at the University of San Francisco – Massagung School of Business in September 2008. His past positions include serving as a Senior Project Manager at Williams Sonoma and a Systems Project Manager at Providian Financial.

Oliver Claude became Program Director at InfoSphere MDM Product Management at IBM in October 2008. Msr. Claude formerly served as a Worldwide Business Unit Executive for the InfoSphere Sales Consulting In a Product Strategy Role. Prior to IBM, he was a Lead Architect in Sales Consulting, CRM, CRM Analytics, and CDI at Siebel Systems.

Steve Cole is now a VP of Marketing at Gladson Interactive. Steve brings a rich history of marketing experiences serving as a former VP of Solutions Marketing at SPSS, SVP of Marketing and Strategy at Click Commerce, and VP of Marketing at ClearCross.

Robert C. Cresanti was named Vice President of Government relations at SAP America Inc., a subsidiary of SAP AG. In his new role, he will lead SAP’s federal and state government relations activities, support and advise SAP’s public sector group, and manage SAP’s non-profit relationships in DC. Rob joins SAP from the Gray Company, a public relations and lobbying firm. He was the former Under Secretary of Commerce for Technology during the Bush Administration.

Rob Enselin was appointed as President, SAP North America. Enselin has served at SAP for 16 years. Previous roles include President and Chief Executive Officer of SAP Japan and Interim President and CEO for SAP Latin America.

Mohammed Ghadyali is now Senior Manager at North Highland Group. Mo brings a wealth of healthcare consulting experience from powerhouse consultancies such as IBM, PriceWaterhouse Coopers, Booz Allen and Hamilton, Ernst and Young, and Deloitte.

Michael Hickins is now an independent Journalist/Blogger/Editor for a variety of technology media including Bnet. Michael has served roles including the Executive Editor at Webscanner, Executive Editor at eWeek, and Executive Editor at Ziff Davis Enterprise.

Jessica (Sweeten) Hood is now Senior Account Executive at AlertSite She was formerly a Senior Account Manager at Forrester Research.

Thanh Huynh became President at Mercury Tax Service in November 2008. Thanh bring a strong tax perspective from experiences as a Director at KLA-Tencor Corp and Oracle Corporation.

Sandeep Kumar now serves as a Senior Advisor with TPI after spending more than a decade and half being at service providers such as SAP, Wipro and PwC.

Rob Lloyd named as Executive Vice President, Worldwide Operations at Cisco. Rob will run Cisco’s Worldwide Sales, Worldwide Channels, Internet Business Solutions Group and Strategic Alliances organizations.

Fred McClimans became CIO at DTECH LABS in January 2009. Fred’s served roles as Founder and Chairman of the Board at Current Analysis and as an Editorial Contributor at Network World.

Robert McNeill has been an Advisory Board Member at Saugatuck Technology. He’s also the Founder at ThoughtBright.

Peter Quinn has been named Chief Customer Officer at Lawson Software. Peter will lead Lawson’s new Customer Experience Office. He formerly ran marketing operations and is a tech industry veteran in customer experience.

Sarah Reed joins Eloqua as the Director of Corporate Communications. She brings a wealth of experience from similar roles at Vignette and IONA technologies.

Tom Rubenak is now a Technology Advisor Gartner Group. Tom has served in many technology roles at leading advisory and analyst firms such as a manager at Forrester Research, Business Analyst at Dun & Bradstreet, and Sales Director at META Group.

Benjamin Wan is now Vice President of Sales and Business Development at TheBroth, a FaceBook Apps company, and on the Board of Advisors at Motally, a firm focused on mobile analytics.

CORPORATE WHISPERS

Hearing from investment bankers, venture capitalists, and enterprenuers the following:

A growing fear among the innovative class that the current political climate may deter innovation. As the public sector continues to increase in size and presence, there seems to be an inclination to decrease incentives that support entrepreneurial activities.
US health care costs are out of control but will not necessarily drive an enmasse shift away from Silicon Valley to other countries like Canada or China.
Merger and acquisition market will continue to be led by the last vendors standing. IPO market, well, that’s pretty much dead.
Clean tech looks promising but lacks a good coordinating body.

Got a scoop or something to share? Please post or send on to rwang0 at gmail dot com and we’ll keep your anonymity.

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions. However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

Wednesday’s Whispers: The Word On The Street – February 2009

Published on February 11, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang

PEOPLE WHISPERS: MOVES, PROMOTIONS, AND MILESTONES*

Fayyaz Alam was promoted to Vice President IT Production Services at Emirates Group in December 2008. His previous roles include Vice President IT Airline Operations at Emirates Airlines and Manager for Information Services.

Carl Allen joined First Flight Placements as a Client Relationship Director in November 2008. Carl previously served roles as the Founder and Managing Director at Alchemy Business Acceleration and was an analyst at Gartner Invest and Forrester Research.

Steve Bonadio has been serving as the Senior Director of Product Marketing at Softscape for the past year. Previous roles include Senior CRM Marketing Director at Oracle Corp, Vice President of Technology Research at META Group, and Senior Analyst at Hurwitz Group.

Christian Brandt joined Ortelius Management AB as a Senior Management Consultant in February 2009. Prior to this role, he served as a New Business Development Manager at Enfo.

Mike Cunningham left D&B to join MDM Ltd. as a Technical Sales Consultant, Master Data Management for Customer Intelligence. He previously served in the Strategic Customer Group – Technical Sales Consultant, MDM, CDI and Sales and Marketing Solutions for Dun and Bradstreet

Ed Elliott has an updated profile Sr Technical Services Manage for Sutter Health . He previously served as the Interim IS Site Director, VNA and Hospice.

Dan Hardtke is now Manager Technical Development and Infrastructure at Ceridian. He was previously an IS architect for Ceridian.

Norine Hendricks is now President at CurlyQ Communications. She was formerly a Director at Eastwick Communications.

George Klaus replaces Tom Kelly in the roles of president and CEO for Epicor. Most recently, Klaus was the company’s executive chairman and previously, from 1996 to 2008, he was Epicor’s CEO.

Eric Lundquist now serves as the Content Director, New Media Products at International Data Group. Eric is an industry luminary who most recently served as the Editor-in-Chief at eWEEK Magazine (formerly PC Week)

Sivakumar Muthukrishnan became Global Alliance Manager at Tata Consultancy Services in August 2008. Previous roles include Global Pre-sales at Platform BPO SBU – Procurement and a strategy role in the Global Oracle Practice.

Motasim Najeeb was appointed the Chief Technology Officer of Sage North America. Motasim bring technology experience as a CTO of Trade Beam, Group VP of Enterpries Applications at Oracle. He will directly report to Sage North America’s CEO, Sue Swenson.

Arnold (Arnie) Rueegg formerly a Vice President of T-Systems Enterprise services has joined the company as vice president of Lawson Professional Services for EMEA. At T-Systems Enterprise Servides Rueegg managed the company’s global solution sales for spare parts, importer solutions and CRM in the automotive industry.

Patric Timmermans is now the owner of Pegasus Customer Marketing. His previous roles include serving as a Senior Director Industry and Product Marketing at Infor.

David Vanheukelom became the President and CEO at Vana Consulting last August 2008. He brings experience from roles as the V ice President, Product Strategy and Management at IGLOO Software, Cognos, and Infor/SSA Glogal.

CORPORATE WHISPERS

Hearing from various corporate recruiters, venture capitalists, and financiers about market shifts such as:

RIF’s in place at major tech vendors but hiring for replacements starting to open up. Reorgs at several vendors may lead to opportunities for new talent and outside hires. Several vendors looking for strong vertical expertise and strong business development skills.
Merger and acquisition market for vendors heating up in key industry verticals such as retail, utilities, public sector, gov contracting, and financial services.
Horizontal acquisitions with opportunity include middleware, analytics, master data management, and E2.0 to Web 2.0 tools.

Got a scoop or something to share? Please post or send on to rwang0@gmail.com and we’ll keep your anonymity.

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions. However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

Wednesday’s Whispers: The Word On The Street – January 2009

Published on January 14, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang

PEOPLE WHISPERS: MOVES, PROMOTIONS, AND MILESTONES*

Congratulations to all! Thanks for your emails and alerts. If you’ve got a change or know of a promotion, keep dropping me a line!

Jeff Abbott, Oracle‘s former Vice President for Global Accelerate Strategy and Programs has left and joined Infor. Prior to joining Oracle, Mr. Abbott held senior positions at Accenture, Saturn Corporation, International Paper and Georgia-Pacific in operations, logistics, sales and strategy.

Fion Cheok was promoted from Assistant Manager to Manager, BAS at Ernst & Young in September 2008.

Patryk Choros is now Business Intelligence Director at Infovide-Matrix. He formerly served as the Financial Sector Manager for BI solutions at Infovide-Matrix, a leading system integrator headquartered in Poland.

Jasmin Dave is now Sales Manager for Nvision at NVIDIA. She was previously a Global Sales Manager for Events at CMP Media,

Renee Boucher Ferguson became Sr. Research Analyst at Kennedy Consulting Research and Advisory in October 2008. Her previous roles include serving as a Senior Writer at Ziff Davis Enterprise

Madhu Ghosh was promoted at Dun & Bradstreet from Assistant Vice President for Business Development for Customer Solutions to Assistant Vice President for Program Management and Product Strategy for Global Analytics Products.

Jun Kawahara became Editor-in-Chief, CIO Magazine Japan for IDG Japan, Inc. in October 2008. Jun previously served as the Editor-in-Chief of IDG’s sister publication, Computerworld Japan.

Sonja Lemmen left Forrester Research to join Batenborch International as aBusiness Consultant. She previously served as a Sales Executive.

Janey Lien is now HR Manager at SST. Janey has served many senior roles in HR for companies such as NetApp, Sina.com, and Hewitt Associates.

Kevin Maddock has joined Rimini Street‘s Executive Team as the Senior Vice President of Global Sales. Prior to joining Rimini Street, Maddock served as executive vice president of worldwide inside sales and operations for ServiceSource and as the Vice President of worldwide support service sales at PeopleSoft, Inc

Alexandre Mesquita de Carvalho is now Senior Sales Engineer at SalesForce.com

Kelli Oliveri has been promoted from Director of Analyst Relations to Senior Director, Analyst Relations for Oracle Services. Former roles include serving as a Vice President and Managing Partner, Market Research and Strategy Services at Market-4-Business.

Laurie Sullivan became Reporter at Mediapost, Online Media Daily in October 2008

Nadina Talukdar became the Head of Worldwide Analyst Relations at TIBCO Software Inc. in September 2008. Previous experiences include serving as the Director of Analyst Relations at BEA and product marketing and alliance roles at both Sun and Oracle.

Simon Trudelle has left Augeo Software, joining a French SaaS company next week..

Doug Topken has left Dun & Bradstreet and has become a Vice President for Business Relationship Management at Reed Elsevier.

Navi Radjou leaves Forrester for Cambridge University after a decade of being a star analyst in technology. Navi will serve as the Executive Director of the Cambridge Center for Indian Business and move from San Francisco to London, UK.

Kaj van de Loo rejoined SAP in December as an SVP in the Office of the CTO. Kaj was the former VP of Engineering at Questra and was a VP for Market Development Engineering at SAP Labs.

Melissa Wilkinson became Senior Program Manager- Tech Industry Consulting at Forrester Research in July 2008

Kyung Yoon, the former Vice Chairman of Heidrick and Struggles has joined Talent Age Associates as its CEO.

CORPORATE WHISPERS

Got a scoop or something to share? Please post or send on to rwang0@gmail.com and we’ll keep your anonymity.

RIF’s have come and may continue to come from the major tech vendors such as HP, Infor, Lawson, Oracle, SAP, and Sun.
Most tech companies have placed hiring freezes.
Recent issues with Satyam may cause a chain reaction in the IT services industry with consolidation at the forefront.
Many tech vendors are waiting for the Obama spending bills to pass and expect the stimulus to pick up late in Q3 2009.

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions. However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

Wednesday’s Whispers: The Word On the Street – December 2008

Published on December 10, 2008 by R "Ray" Wang

PEOPLE WHISPERS: MOVES, PROMOTIONS, AND MILESTONES

Congratulations to all! Thanks for your emails and alerts. If you’ve got a change or know of a promotion, keep dropping me a line!

Jim Anderson is now a Partner at Element Consulting Group. Jim previously served as EVP for professional services at Lawson Software and Group VP roles in services for PeopleSoft and JD Edwards.

Sharath Dorbala has been promoted to Vice President, Solution Management at Amdocs from his previous position as Director of Product Strategy this November. Prior to returning to Amdocs, he worked at Oracle where he was part of the Fusion Middleware team.

Max Efimov is now Director – Emerging Technologies at SITA CORP. Max was formerly a Manager at BearingPoint in the Enterprise Solutions SAP group.

Madhu Ghosh became Leader Program Management and Product Strategy for Global Analytics Products at Dun & Bradstreet in September 2008. He was previously a Leader for Business Development & Strategic Marketing.

Kartik Iyengar is now Head – Strategic Growth at an undisclosed company. Kartik was formerly a General Manager in EAS for Wipro and an avid SAP ESOA evangelist.

Joanne McCool became the COO of Ternary Software in April 2008 and a Board Member Volunteer at The Career Wardrobe. Joanne served various roles at Primavera Systems, Inc. where she was the VP/General Manager of Evolve and a VP of Human Resources.

Jim Nail the former marketing and strategy star analyst at Forrester Research has been at Cymfony Inc. as their Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer. Check out his new site!

Balakrishba Narasimhan has left SAP Global Marketing where he was director of the highly acclaimed Apollos Competitive Intelligence strategy group. He is now a Senior Director for Corporate and Field Marketing at Appirio.

Mike D’Onofrio joined Zuoro as a VP of sales and member of the executive management team. Mike bring over 20 years of selling experience in the billing industry, most recently with WebEx and ADP.

Mohan Pillai left Fujitsu Consulting where he was a Director in the SAP CRM Practice and has now joined Sparta Consulting Inc where he serves as a Director for the SAP practice.

Vicki Raeburn became SVP Critical Information Development & Quality at IHS in July 2008. Prior to IHS, Vicki was a Senior Vice President and Chief Quality Officer at D&B – Dun & Bradstree.

Sunder Sarangan now serves as an Associate Vice President for Field Marketing at Infosys Technologies Ltd. He was promoted from his previous role as Head of Worldwide Industry Analyst Relations.

Adil Vazifdar has left Tata Consulting Services where he was the Global Head, CRM Sales and Marketing and joined Cegedim- Dendrite as an Account director.

Ellie Wilkinson joins Tableau Software as a Director of Product Marketing from Microsoft Business Solutions where she was a Group Program Manager leading the global launch of Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0, including channel partner and field readiness, marketing and events, AR/ PR strategy, positioning and launch execution worldwide through 36 countries.

John Wookey joins SAP leading on Demand initiatives for the Enterprise. He starts November 10th in Palo Alto, CA. John formerly ran Oracle’s Fusion Application initiative and left Oracle October 2007.

CORPORATE WHISPERS

Got a scoop or something to share? Please post or send on to rwang0@gmail.com and we’ll keep your anonymity.

ISV’s in the gov contracting space are the hot M&A plays as software vendors and IT services providers scramble to get a piece of the infrastructure spending action.
Mergers may come soon to the IT Services firms. Expect the most activity in the Microsoft Partner Base as bulking up gives partners more reach into geo’s and micro vertical markets.