ShadowRAM: November 21, 2005
Who got the night&'s biggest hand? Overshadowing the ovations for renaissance inventor Ray Kurzweil, Blackberry kingpin Mike Lazaridis, SAS founder James Goodnight and Toshiba portable poohbah Atsutoshi Nishida was none other than VAR Frank Mogavero of Data Systems Worldwide. Frank and sons have seen it all and lived to tell about it. Frank&'s favorite song? Gloria Gaynor&'s “I Will Survive.”
Partners had less moolah to wager in Vegas this year at CA World. CA used the show to announce big changes to the company and its product line, but some partners grumbled about one change they didn&'t take to kindly to: having to pay their own registration fee, a bill CA routinely picked up in the past. Subtract $1,095 for registration and another $495 for the symposium fee, and you get a lot less time at the tables.
Jerry Seinfeld told funny jokes Wednesday night. CA&'s executive VP of products, Russ Artzt told unfunny jokes Monday morning. And while moderating Artzt&'s panel, TV&'s Forrest Sawyer (who was funnier telling a joke in Japanese than Artzt was in English) located a beaming CEO John Swainson in the audience and said, “I haven&'t seen a chief executive more excited about his product line since Hugh Hefner.”
Tech execs focused mostly on business process innovation and global innovation networks at Forrester&'s Globalization Summit last week, but one Madison Avenue exec said U.S. firms had better re-engineer marketing to the 3.3 million consumers in BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China). Dave Banerjee, founder at Banerjee and Partners, took a pot shot at auto giant GM, saying it needs to rev up advertising in its own backyard. “They are telling Americans that Chevy is an American revolution, but the product is anything but revolutionary,” he said, to loud laughter from the American audience in the hub of the American revolution. He then gushed about the great job GM is doing internationally. “The same company has gone to India and done a phenomenal job. … If you ask an Indian which car they&'d like to drive, 10 out of 10 would say Chevy.”
Speaking of pot shots, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a potential presidential candidate in 2008, said Silicon Valley and Route 128, the two legendary tech centers, are failing to inspire innovation. Massachusetts has to do more to attract companies—lowering taxes and building houses—but California, he said, is a real mess, with transport and power systems in ruins. California Gov. Arnold Schwartzenegger shot back, trashing Boston&'s infamously expensive—and leaky—Big Dig.
Rumor has it that former Microsoft channel guy Dan English, who&'s a marksman in his spare time, is now at Mossy Oak, the Mississippi purveyor of huntin&' and fishin&' goods.