ShadowRAM: August 28, 2006

According to CA's proxy statement, filed last week, "Several executives, including Messrs. [John] Swainson, [Jeff] Clarke and [Greg] Corgan, utilized the corporate aircraft and helicopter for personal use in fiscal year 2006, in accordance with the Company's Aircraft Use Policy."

Salesforce.com sure throws a nice party. At its Boston soiree at Avila's last Monday, CEO Marc Benioff and crew served some lovely wines, including a nice Chardonnay and Cabernet. Not coincidentally, it seems, Salesforce.com's once-and-continuing CFO is Steve Cakebread, whose family runs the joint. Cakebread had announced his planned retirement some time back, but on the company's recent earnings call, Benioff said after an extensive search for a successor, the company talked Steve into staying.

Ingram Micro's Justin Crotty really enjoys his beer. So much so that when he was a younger man he used to brew his own. One holiday season Crotty decided to brand his home brew, coming up with the name "Fat Edna's Winter Girth." Alas, even though Justin is a great salesman now, his brews never rivaled those of Sam Adams or Pete's Wicked Ale. That's because young Justin made a drastic marketing misstep.

He felt compelled to have a woman's face symbolize the brand by putting her mug on the label. Instead of using an artist's rendering, however, he chose a photograph of a woman in a local newspaper whom he felt represented his vision of Fat Edna. Not bothering to ID the photo, he scanned the woman's face onto the label, slapped it on his beer and stashed a batch in his parents' refrigerator. When his parents hosted a holiday party, one guest reached in the fridge for a cold one, studied the label and exclaimed, "Hey, I know this person."

Unbeknownst to Justin, he'd scanned the face of a very prominent local politician. He had no choice but to quickly consume the evidence and destroy the bottles, thus ending his brief career as a brewmaster.

Tech Data's Pete Peterson is usually a fixture at the distributor's TechSelect events, but he was noticeably absent from last week's show in Chicago. Instead, the vice president of systems product marketing was home in Tampa, watching his son Michael's high-school football game. The younger Peterson has already accepted an athletic scholarship to play at Boston College next year, and his proud papa never misses a game.