OK, now I get it — the guys at Ab Initio have something to spin or hide
According to the comments on this blog post, Ab Initio has been throwing analysts out of their trade show booths and being otherwise rude for at least two years, and probably a long longer. That goes beyond marketing strategy or quirkiness. It means Ab Initio has some secrets it desperately doesn’t want to have found out, or at least that it wants to conceal unless there are Ab Initio salespeople present to spin the prospects’ response to the news.
Probably, these are just failings or limitations of the product. Wilder speculation includes intellectual property violations and the like, but in most cases the reason that people don’t want to be evaluated is simply that they think an evaluation would wind up including negative aspects.
Or maybe it’s ownership and funding. When a company doesn’t even reveal management’s names, you know they’re taking secrecy to extremes. Again, I refer to the example of Thunderstone, an outfit that once had very good search technology and an impressive customer base, but now barely shows up in the market’s awareness.
Technorati Tags: Ab Initio, Thunderstone
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12 Responses to “OK, now I get it — the guys at Ab Initio have something to spin or hide”
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According to ZoomInfo, the General Manager of
Ab Initio appears to be one Alan Parker. The
company is British owned/headquartered, which
may explain the unusual management structure
and general fogginess about its operations.
Cheers,
Jaune
Thanks! Hmm. All I’m getting for Mr. Parker is Managing Director, Europe.
Wikipedia says Ab Initio was founded by Thinking Machines’ founding CEO Sheryl Handler. Well, that fits. Thinking Machines is a company that radically overpromised world-changing technology, and wound up collapsing into bankruptcy.
One take on Handler, from http://www.inc.com/magazine/19950915/2622_pagen_5.html:
While the company was sinking, she focused her attention on putting out a cookbook with recipes from the company’s now-infamous cafeteria. Increasingly paranoid, she had a video camera aimed at her personal parking spot and, by some accounts, made people take meetings with her in her parked car. She hired a bodyguard, telling her colleagues that she had received death threats.
Some members of Thinking Machines’ board suddenly seemed to realize that the person who had been running the company all those years had no business skills.
Wikipedia further says that Torrent — later bought by Ascential — was formed by TMI folks, just as Ab Initio was.
Check this: http://tinyurl.com/oydwx
Jaune
Information on Sheryl Handler may be foud here: http://tinyurl.com/2xyg24
Information on Ab Initio may be found here: http://tinyurl.com/yodwwj
The corporate registration may be found here: http://tinyurl.com/yvqfxg
Mme Handler is listed as President, CEO, Treasurer and Director. Clifford
Lasser is listed as Secretary and Director. James L. Burke is listed as CFO.
No equity information is provided. Speak about closely held! Mme Handler is
clearly bent on outdoing Howard Hughes!
Quick search on LinkedIn reveals 100+ employees, however some records may
be stale. 5 people are listed as directors, 15 as managers, no one as VP.
Cheers,
Jaune
Ab Initio’s 2006 Annual Report shows 8,900,679
shares issued and outstanding against a total
of 24,000,000 authorized shares, par value of
$0.00100.
Cheers,
Jaune
I remember spending a few hours talking to Thunderstone in hushed tones over the phone where they assured me they were the best in the business. At the time I believe they were in fact running search on eBay so there was something to it.
But to get investors and customers you have to have a clear story that you can share at least to a limited and qualified audience. I know longer waste time working with companies that don’t talk.
This company sounds like one we will never hear about again despite their catchy name…
Hi again, Jaune,
Your tinyurl looks a lot like the link I put in the main post.
What’s your source for an Ab Initio annual report? I’m under the impression they’re not publicly held or making filings.
Thanks,
CAM
Yep, Kris — you got the point of my Thunderstone analogy perfectly.
And Thunderstone isn’t nearly as bad as Ab Initio. They actually have execs with disclosed names who sometimes talk to outsiders or are even — gasp — quoted in the media. They put out press releases and all that.
Ab Initio is in a whole different league of paranoid weirdness.
CAM
Ab Initio’s annual report is viewable at
http://tinyurl.com/26n32, courtesy of the
Commonwealth of Massachussetts
Cheers,
Jaune
Ahh. Just saw your comment in moderation (that happens when there are multiple URLs).
Good call on LinkedIn. I have about 100 people in my network w/ current jobs at Ab Initio, vs. 177 at Netezza or 254 at MySQL. Since I’d expect better coverage at the latter two than the former, that suggests Ab Initio is decently sized.
CAM
But we cannot tell if AI’s employee roll is
growing or shrinking — and rumors I heard
suggest the latter
Also, the absence of any VP titles from any
search results (LinkedIn, ZoomInfo) raises
questions about the company’s organizational
structure
Is Mme Handler really handling everything
;-)
herself?
Cheers,
Jaune
Maybe she will start a new trend for companies appointing an ‘Eccentric Founder’.
Personally, I feel that ‘Crap Manager’ would be more appropriate…