Mark Hoffman, who helped found database vendor Sybase Inc. and led now-defunct B2B company Commerce One Inc., has signed on as chairman, president and CEO of Everdream Corp., a hosted PC management company.
Everdream, of Fremont, Calif., made the announcement Tuesday.
Hoffman, who was at Sybase from 1984 to 1995, and Commerce One from 1995 to 2004, takes over for Gary Griffiths, who left the company July 5.
Through its proprietary Control Center platform, Everdream—which has about 140,000 seats—enables customers to have their PCs and mobile devices managed over the Internet.
Through agents placed on the machines being managed, users can either have Everdream manage their desktop infrastructure or do it themselves using Everdreams technology via a hosted environment.
Most customers have Everdream manage the infrastructure, though a growing number are managing it themselves, Hoffman said.
“One of the things I really like about [Everdream] is, we have a really broad suite of products,” said Hoffman, who had served as CEO of at both Sybase and Commerce One.
“[The products] allow you to discover whats on your network … and then discover what software is actually loaded onto the PCs.”
Through the technology, users can do everything from patch management and backup to deployment and provisioning. The company also offers a Web-based help desk to handle customer concerns.
Everdreams target customer base has been the midmarket—which the company defines as 500 to 5,000 seats. However, Hoffman said the enterprise space will continue to be a fertile field for his company. Expanding the customer base will be a key duty for him, he said.
The hosted model enables businesses to run a desktop environment without having to invest in a lot of the upfront software costs and ongoing management expenses.
“People are kind of sick of complexity in these enterprise systems,” Hoffman said.
He said his experience in building companies will help him as he tries to grow Everdream.
Sybase is still a player in the database field, though Commerce One, battered by the economic downturn in the technology industry, shut down last year.
Everdreams board of directors also pointed to Hoffmans experience.
“Everdreams software-as-a-service model is being embraced by companies of all sizes at an increasingly rapid rate,” board member John Balen said in a prepared statement.
“As CEO of Commerce One, and before that as CEO of Sybase, Mark has a proven record of building strong customer value and developing a global brand that will help guide Everdream through its next phase of growth.”
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