Enterprise Systems Power 100 11-20
11. Michael Ruettgers
(Executive Chairman, EMCCorp.)
Storage used to be boring. While file systems and SCSIprotocols were hot, users and Wall Street largely ignored storage. Now thate-business is business as usual, enterprises are discovering that managingstorage is a job in itself. EMC proved eager to help companies developappropriate storage solutions with its line of Storage Area Network (SAN)products, and, more recently, with Network Attached Storage (NAS) offerings.Under Ruettgers’ leadership, EMC has quickly become the 800-pound gorilla inthe storage arena, making it the choice of enterprise administrators and thedarling of Wall Street.
12. John Chambers
(President & CEO, CiscoSystems Inc.)
Cisco’s dominance of the router market and its(formerly huge) appetite for acquisitions are legendary, but the real story maylie in Cisco’s manufacturing and inventory management. Outsourcing much of itsmanufacturing, Cisco assembles its routers from parts made by othermanufacturers, then sells them with its brand name. It was a profitablestrategy in good times, but today’s economy may test that strategy. As saleshave started to slow, Cisco has found itself with an inventory far greater thanmarket demand. In addition, the company faces stiff competition from both thehigh and low ends. At the top of the network products scale, it battles nicheplayers like Juniper Networks, which offers enterprise and carrier gradeswitches and routers. At the same time, the low-end is slowly moving toward acommodity focus, opening the market to players who compete on cost rather thanbrand.
13. Bill Gates
(Chairman and Chief Software Architect, Microsoft Corp.)Love him, hate him, call him a capitalist devil orbrilliant entrepreneur. Whether underdog or overlord, Bill Gates owns what isprobably the most recognized face in computing. Less than two years ago,pundits predicted the demise of the Microsoft empire, but the “Teflon Chairman”has landed on his feet, and the rest of the industry still holds its breathevery time Dollar Bill holds a press conference. As Microsoft’s “new” softwarearchitect, Gates is now focused on technical strategy rather than day-to-dayoperations. With his company’s new .NET architecture, Gates is hoping tofurther cement his hold on application development. Between its newestenterprise server systems —like BizTalk and SQL Server 2000—and the Windows2000 Datacenter Server—which can run on 32-processor machines—Microsoft ispoised to disrupt enterprise computing in significant ways, thus expanding itsstatus as a mover in a range of high-tech areas.
14. Dave Winer
(Co-author, SOAP Spec; President, Userland Software Inc.; Industry Pundit)Winer’s career has taken a number of interesting twistsand turns since he first made a splash with the spreadsheet Visicalc. Now, hefocuses on document sharing for end users via XML. One of the major architectsof the XML standard XML-RPC and the SOAPprotocol, he has vociferouslycriticized Microsoft for pushing what he sees as proprietary changes to an ostensiblyopen framework. His scriptingnews.com Weblog features his updates on thecomputer industry and XML initiatives.
15. Mark Andreessen
(Chairman & Co-founder, Loudcloud Inc.)As a college student, Andreessen was a principaldeveloper of the Mosaic Internet browser, which brought a point-and-clickinterface to Internet content. Not content to simply change the client side ofthe Internet experience, he founded Loudcloud to develop software and servicesfor hosting and managing Internet sites. While Loudcloud may find a profitableniche in the market, the company has bumped heads with some of its partners. Asit shifted business models, the company moved from hosting software to managedhosting services—making its customers its competitors.
16. Daniel Warmenhoven
(CEO, NetworkAppliance Inc.)
While SANs have changed the way many enterprises handlestorage, Network Appliance offers an alternative: high-end NAS. Unlike SAN, NASdevices generally use IP networking for connecting servers to storage. Thatmeans that standard Ethernet can connect devices together, which can simplifymanagement. While it uses standard networking protocols, NetApp wrote a filesystem and an operating system from the ground up to improve data transmissionperformance.
17. Hasso Plattner
(Co-chairman & Co-CEO, SAP,AG)
SAP has long dominated the ERP market, providingback-office services to companies ranging from Fortune 500 to mid-sized. As ERPcontinues to heat up, SAP’s position in the market may well become increasinglypowerful. SAP has also targeted the B-to-B market, offering integrationstrategies for creating business-to-business exchanges that allow companies totalk directly to their suppliers through ERP systems.
18. Linda Sanford
(Senior Vice President & Group Executive, StorageSystems Group, IBM Corp.)
While EMC may have taken the lead in the SAN market,IBM has hardly sat on the sidelines. Led by Sanford, the storage division hasintroduced a number of products and initiatives into the storage space, therebyaltering the landscape. IBM’s “Shark” storage server enables advancedmanagement and routing of block-level storage traffic across the SAN,simplifying implementations. In addition, the IBM storage unit has spearheadeda program to resolve one of the SAN world’s biggest problems—interoperability.Partnerships with Compaq and others may help IBM become a greater power yet inthe storage world.
19. Al Zollar
(President & CEO, LotusDevelopment Corp.)
Historically, Lotus has remained an independent companythat happened to be owned by IBM. However, when Zollar took the reins last year,speculation arose that Lotus might be further integrated into its parentcompany. Coming from IBM’s network computing software division, Zollar has thepotential to further tie Lotus’ products into IBM. With IBM Global Services asa potential sales force, Lotus has the opportunity to expand its reach into theIT marketplace.
20. David Boies
(Founding Partner, Boies, Schiller & Flexner)Boies made his first impact in the computer world whenhe helped bolster the Justice Department’s antitrust case against Microsoft.Although his work for Al Gore during the Florida vote recount late last yearprobably precludes him from working for the current administration, he is stillactive in technology-related cases. Boies has defended Napster in its battleswith the record industry, arguing on both legal and technological grounds.
The Top Five ITLeadersLeaders No. 6-10Leaders No. 11-20Leaders No. 21-30Leaders No. 31-40Leaders No. 41-50Leaders No. 51-75Leaders No. 76-100