Former Berbee, CDW Execs Found Singlewire Software

Singlewire, based in Madison, Wis., will be led by Paul Shain, former CEO of Berbee and senior vice president at CDW, as president and CEO. The company will focus on building applications for the unified communications and physical security spaces.

In addition to Shain, Ken Bywaters, current practice manager for Berbee Software, will become executive vice president of product management at Singlewire. Greg Sliwicki, former president of Berbee and vice president of sales at CDW, is Singlewire's executive vice president of sales and marketing. Brett Rimkus, former CFO at Berbee and vice president of business development at CDW, has been named CFO of Singlewire.

Berbee Information Networks was purchased by CDW in October 2006 for $175 million. Singlewire purchased the assets of Berbee Software, which includes the InformaCast family of IP notification applications, back from CDW and intends to enhance the InformaCast platform to include the integration of its notification technology into the physical security space.

"These software applications have been a valuable asset to both Berbee and CDW for many years," Shain said in a statement. "Everyone involved recognized that in order for this technology to move forward, we needed to bring increased focus to this effort. Consolidating under Singlewire Software was the best means to do this."

Singlewire Software will develop and support IP-based voice applications that are designed to detect incidents within an organization, notify people or systems of such incidents and activate the necessary systems to resolve the situation. Product features include enterprisewide paging, emergency mass notification, remote detection of incidents on an IP network, and remote control of IP phones for training and support.

All other portions of Berbee Information Networks remain with CDW as part of its Advanced Technology Services team. John Edwardson, chairman and CEO of CDW, said in a statement that CDW will continue as a key hardware provider for Singlewire customers.