Landry Surfaces As CEO

John Landry, the former CTO of Lotus Development who went on to fund and found several tech startups, is taking a more active role as CEO of ThinkingBytes.

The two-year-old company is working on a development environment for multiuser wireless applications.

ThinkingBytes, based here, started out developing for the Palm operating system but is now branching out to build a platform on which VARs, ISVs and integrators can build multi-user applications for devices running Windows CE or whichever mobile operating system finds favor in the enterprise.

"We sell the tool; the apps are free," said Landry, who was acting as chairman and CTO at the company before taking over the CEO post from co-founder Joseph Baron, who is staying on as vice president of product management.

The company will offer starter sales-force automation, customer service, bug tracking and time-and-expense applications that can be customized for vertical niches or specific customer needs, Landry said. "I think we have a real channel play here," he

told CRN.

The product is now in beta at some 30 sites and features Web-based synchronization to ensure that workgroup members have up-to-date information. The new software is expected to launch officially next week at Demomobile in La Jolla, Calif.

VARs said they are definitely looking for help in quickly moving existing applications to wireless devices or building them from scratch.

"Theoretically, moving apps to the PocketPC should be easy, but it's not," said Grady Crunk, executive vice president at Central Data, a solution provider in Titusville, Fla. "Fast development is key. We need to get apps out to our customers before the big software vendors or someone else does," he said.

Chris Shipley, executive producer of Demomobile, said Landry's experience has helped ThinkingBytes address the needs of line-

of-business managers, the enterprise and end users, as well as integrators. "There's a tremendous opportunity here," she said.

Landry's 25 years in the software business included stints at Dun and Bradstreet, Cullinet Software and McCormack and Dodge before he joined Lotus in 1990. After IBM bought that company in 1995, Landry became vice president of technology strategy at IBM until 2000. He helped fund Narrative Communications, a multimedia streaming company acquired by Excite/AtHome in 1999, and Anyday.com, a Web calendaring company bought by Palm in 2000.