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When it rains, it pours,” lamented the Lynx, as he barricaded his basement with bags of Kitty litter to fend off the furious flooding caused by the endless New England rain. The deluged Drudge wasnt just referring to the preposterous precipitation, but also to the exec exodus going on at CA. Last month, Chief Operating Officer Jeff Clarke fled the Islandia, N.Y., software maker to head a division of Cendant. Over the last week and a half, the company has seen Chief Technology Officer Mark Barrenechea and Chief Financial Officer Robert Davis both jump ship. Barrenechea is heading off to join Garnett & Helfrich Capital, a venture buyout group. One CA watcher told the Tabby that whispers from CA indicated that the Barrenechea move may have been orchestrated by CA head honcho John Swainson, who is thought to be looking to move a handpicked successor into the CTO role. CA Senior Vice President and Corporate Controller Robert Cirabisi will handle the interim CFO chores until the company finds a replacement for Davis.
As the Furball wrung out his soggy tail, he also noted that former CA CEO Sanjay Kumar and company founder Charles Wang have reached an agreement that leaves Wang the sole owner of the New York Islanders hockey team. The agreement calls for Wang to pay Kumar $1 million a year for the next nine years, during which time Kumar might be doing his time for accounting fraud.
Spencers new ring tone, “A Hard Rains A-Gonna Fall,” brought forth a caller who said that Microsofts hot pursuit of advertising revenue came up during Microsoft bigwig Steve Ballmers speech to a gathering of The Commonwealth Club Silicon Valley, a group that hosts public forums concerning the region. Ballmer compared the possibility of ads popping up from within applications to how TV viewers have long accepted television commercials.
In a recent rant on the eWeek Podcast, the Kitty had noted a patent application (USPTO #20060064700) by the Redmondians that would create pop-up notices any time a cable TV viewer changed the channel. Combine that with Microsofts recent acquisition of Massive, a company that can digitally insert ads into video games or products such as Windows Live, and one has to assume Microsoft has bigger plans than just catching up with Googles online ad model. “Microsoft wants to plant ads where the sun dont shine,” cackled the Kitty.
Soon, His Hirsuteness hydroplaned down the highway to his office, where he heard that a May Microsoft security patch update can prevent users from sending e-mail via their BlackBerrys or other mobile devices. Check out support.microsoft.com/kb/912918 to prevent the problem.
The soggy scandal monger scanned an article written by Bill Gates and Intels Paul Ottelini in The Wall Street Journal that proclaimed the PC is not dead because notebooks outsold iPods last year. “Bills just got to get over his iPod envy,” mused the Mouser.
LitterBoxLynx
And dont forget me at blog.ziffdavis.com/katt