Darren posted a very thoughtful item related to my joining SDM software. It was very nice and made me realize I have a lot of expectations to meet! I’m up for the challenge. I’ve known Darren Mar-Elia for about 13 years or so and have come to know him and how he thinks about software and solutions pretty well. He is one that is very committed to solving real problems that people and organizations have. He solves those problems without creating a lot of extra confusion or cruft. I love this way of thinking. Building solutions that are thin in their implementation and fat in their impact is very rewarding. I’m very excited to be able to be a part of this with Darren and with SDM software.
As the Vice President of Product Management and Business Development I will spend the majority of my time working directly with both customers/partners as well as our internal engineering team. I will be evangelizing what we do at SDM Software and helping organizations understand how they can do things better. At the same time I will be listening. I will be listening not only to words but what is behind those words. The old school ‘what keeps you up at night’ along with observing challenges that are evolving as the technology world we survive in evolves. I will take what I hear and translate that into real requirements and work hard with engineering to ensure we deliver what our customers need. That is my commitment to SDM and that is my commitment to our customers (and future customers).
I’ve had an incredible set of opportunities and challenges throughout my career. I’ve worked with huge organizations such as IBM Global Service and Microsoft, and very small and focused companies doing software and solutions or consulting and training. I’ve had the pleasure of working with companies through major growth phases such as Aelita Software and DesktopStandard. I’ve worked with companies as they evolve their technologies and enter new and exciting spaces such as Specops Software. I’ve even worked with a couple of organizations that didn’t succeed in the traditional sense. I’ve learned and grown from each and every one of these experiences. I’m extremely excited to bring my experience and expertise to SDM Software and fully expect to have a great impact on this already fantastic company.
I said once that I am very passionate about the intersection of configuration and compliance. Seeing different ways to configure systems in your organization’s environment and seeing how that is evolving is something that keeps me very excited. Compliance in the early ’90s workgroup world is super different than it is today in the 21st century cloud/hybrid/BYOD chaos that we live with. Taking old learnings and evolving them to address similar needs in the context of new technologies is a great way to honor past experiences.
SDM has been providing targeted solutions for quite a while now. Those solutions address real problems and address them in a way that directly supports the needs of configuration and desktop/server/device administrators today. Watching where IT is headed and evolving our solutions to address the new reality while at the same time envisioning new ways to address problems is, well, it is what we do.
I’m super excited to be a part of SDM Software. I’m up for the challenge and look forward to teaming up with Darren and the team to make great things happen. You can find me here on the blog, at the forums on twitter @kevsully67, or email me at Kevin@sdmsoftware.com, I’ll be around.
Kevin