It's About time, UIS!

Unisys reported this morning that Joe McGrath will be stepping down as CEO at the end of the year.  Why wait that long?  Unisys could learn a little from professional sports.  If the coach isn't getting it done, get a new one!

So, good ole Joe took over in January of 2005, but he really started running the show in January, 2004 when Larry Weinbach made him COO, the first time Unisys has ever had a COO. 

So, let's take a look at the stock since Joe assumed control...

Interesting, huh?  The stock has been on a steady decline since Joe became heir apparent to Larry.

From 15 to 3....

I know a bunch of people still at Unisys and I wanted that company to succeed in the worst way.   Now, maybe they can start over.

Congratulations, Unisys!  Now, if you would just look a little closer, I can name about 50 other senior folks who have spent the last 5 years coasting...

PERFMAN 7.2 Enables Virtualization Lifecycle Management

Don't have time to tell you all about it right now, but we did announce our Virtualization Planning Tool this morning!  The VPT enables you to analyze years of data on the physical servers, plan for how to consolidate them into virtual servers, and model their performance.  I am selling it short, but I have to run to another meeting.  You should read the PR here.

This completes our life cycle offering because we have been doing the monitoring and management since 2004.

How low long has your management vendor been doing VMware monitoring, modeling and management???

Oh, and can they look inside the guest OS for root-cause analysis?  Can you provide the single pane of glass view of multiple Virtual Centers?

We have customers managing over 6000 guests across multiple Virtual Centers with our product suite.  Check us out at Booth 853 at VMworld!!!

Advanced Pictures from VMworld 2008

Yes, VMworld has not officially started, but I was setting up PERFMAN's booth so I thought I would snap some pictures from "behind the scenes".  Not sure I like the "theme" of the show so far.  The monstrous cartoon-like head shots are a little disturbing...  Maybe they will grow on me. 

And, stay tuned for some really cool news from PERFMAN tomorrow.  What?  You haven't heard of PERFMAN?  Join the club.  But, tomorrow, that changes.  Come check us out at Booth 853!

 

 

I think its the eyes that freak me out... LOL

Come Visit PERFMAN at VMworld (Booth 853)

I hope you will take a moment to stop by our booth for a demo of our product suite and to enter for a chance to win a Panasonic 42" 1080p Plasma TV!!!

In addition, we have some exciting news to tell you about! Looking forward to seeing you at the show!!!

Replace the Human Race

Here is a great article about computers replacing refs in sports.  I never knew about the Hawk-Eye in tennis.  Fascinating stuff...

Now get back to work.

VMworld is coming...

VMworld starts next week and it promises to be an exciting time for all involved (14,000 attendees and 200+ sponsors).  For me, however, there is an even greater level of anticipation.   This is the first show that I have had my hands on from start to finish at PERFMAN.  Of course, the show was booked prior to my arrival, but everything else, from messaging and booth design through the PR and finally, the give away was all led by me.

This is not bragging as there are many things that could have been done better, faster, differently.  But, it is momentous in the fact that this is the first effort from start to finish that was shepherded by the new team.  And, we are very excited about the new messaging, the PR, the product, the team, etc.

It should be a very exciting time for us.  After all, this is not only a major trade show for PERFMAN, but in many ways this is a "coming out" party.  Strange to say that for a 20 year-old company, but there has been "virtually" (pun intended) no marketing here for many years. 

Just the process of putting a foundation together took much longer than I expected.  Of course, I did not expect to have to start completely from scratch!

And when I say scratch, I mean it.  Yes, there are a few white papers and the customer list is long and impressive no matter the size of the company, but the basics were not in place.

Some of the things accomplished in preparation for this launch include:

• New messaging and supporting documents
• New PR team hired (Prequent Rocks!)
• New lead flow processes defined and implemented
• New lead tracking software implemented
• New web site deployed with tracking capabilities
• New corporate identity and supporting style guide
• New collateral to support the sales process
• New lead generation activities started
• New customer newsletter implemented
• New sales team hired and trained
• New sales engineering team hired and trained
• New advertising campaign in place
• Introduction and briefing with a dozen analysts
• New corporate apparel

And, yet there is so much more to do...

If I don't get a chance to blog again before the show, I will see you there.  Come up and say hi!

PERFMAN will be in Booth 853!

Google Chrome - First Take

At heart, I am a technology geek (and a reef aquariums geek).  So, I just had to try the new Google browser, Chrome.

I have had it installed for about 24 hours on both my work laptop and my home PC.  And, though that certainly is not enough time to put it through its paces fully, I have to give it 2 thumbs up and a "so what..."

Others are not so complementary.

Here is what I can tell you so far.  I like the default homepage.  It organizes the recent pages very nicely and shows the recent bookmarks. 

It imports all of my data from Firefox very well.  Nothing was lost.

It does seem to handle Javascript much better.  I do not see the slowdowns like I use to on Firefox when I had a lot of tabs open.

It works with every page I use...so far.  And I have tested it with Google Adwords, LoopFuse, Joomla-based sites, Forums, Blogs, Flash intros, etc.

And now for the "so what".  So far, nothing in this browser has presented anything to me that makes me say, "this is my browser".  I am coming to realize that, at least for today, a browser is just like a window.  Yeah, some are double-paned, some have decorative components, some insulate better than others. 

But, at the end of the day, a window is something you look through, not something you look at.  And this window is just like the rest.

Oooh, you know what?  I just made that up but I really like it.  I think I officially deem that statement Copyright ME.  :)  Feel free to use it, but give me credit if you do.  LOL