Ori Danieli

sraeli software designer Ori Danieli claims he came to his vocation by accident after a stint in industrial computing,working on a system for packing oranges.

"I was always building something or breaking something," he says.

Danieli joined Mercury Interactive in 1993 after managing the software department for National Semiconductor's research facility in Israel. Within a year, he was vice president of research and development.

Given Danieli's stint on the user side, it's no accident that Mercury Interactive's engineering team is highly customer-focused. If code breaks down in production, the developer responsible for that piece is dispatched on-site until the problem is resolved.

The policy makes sense. After all, Mercury Interactive seeks to become the preferred purveyor of tools that help corporations with IT governance through offerings such as the LoadRunner testing application to the Topaz application management software to the Optane business technology optimization suite.

"Software development is really a struggle with trying really to pick alternatives," Danieli says. "If you look at the products, you'll see a reflection of this topic inside."

These days, Danieli, whose dress code apparently runs to rock-group T-shirts, writes code in the morning, consulting business tomes such as "Built to Last" to help with his management skills.

"The real crisis is when you become a team leader," he says.