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Obama Looking To Symantec CEO For Commerce
patentpundit writes "Word has started to circulate that President Barack Obama may be close to appointing John W. Thompson, the outgoing chief executive of network security firm Symantec Corp., to be the next Secretary of Commerce. According to the LA Times, over the last several days Thompson has spoken on the telephone and met with key senators, and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), a member of the commerce committee that would hold confirmation hearings for any appointed Secretary of Commerce, is 'extremely supportive and hopeful he'll be the nominee.' The appointment of Thompson to head the Department of Commerce would be an exceptionally interesting choice given that only days ago President Obama asked Scott McNealy, a co-founder of Sun Microsystems, to lead his open source charge and conduct a study and report back regarding the feasibility of the US government forgoing proprietary software and moving toward open source software solutions."
Is his track record so far.
What can we now expect?
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
The first thing he'll do is Root the country- for our own protection. We won't be able to do anything once he's in. He'll screw everything up, and won't leave when we ask him to. We'll need to find a special force of people to go in and remove him manually.
Worst of all, he won't even fix any problems while he's there, and we'll end up calling his competitors to fix the problem later.
Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex
CEO's are just part of the same thought elite recycling old ideas. Even ones that run technical companies. Stuff like this is only news when real reformers like RMS get cabinet appointments.
Thompson had a career at the IBM Corporation and serves as a director on the corporate boards of UPS and Seagate Technology.
This game will waste your life. Don't clicky!
Obama's administration, feature creep, and bloat. Just like Symantic.
THL phish sticks
I don't know about John W. Thompson, but my gut response to this was, "Could he look for someone who runs a company that doesn't suck?" Thompson might not be responsible, but *someone* has been running Symantec into the ground for several years now-- at least as far as product quality is concerned.
As far as technology goes, I'd be much more pleased if I felt like the administration were looking for people with pro-freedom and pro-consumer tendencies.
I suppose he knows the "tech industry" or what have you better than other possible choices. I just have this feeling that having the former CEO of a proprietary software company in charge of looking into the feasibility of going open source might not be as good an idea.
I mean, the guy is capable but is he willing? Several nations are going nuts with open source now since it puts them in control of their own systems and even fits their philosophical ideas (power to the people, etc) better than going Windows. So we know its possible and seems to be working out okay where it has been done. Why do I have a feeling whomever we do get for Secretary of Commerce is going to say we should stick with Windows for the OS, Symantec for the AV, and MS Office for our primary apps?
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this could prevent Symmantec from providing any contracts to the white house for 2 years
I don't like Symantec either, but if this is Obama's attempt to keep NAV off his white house PC it's a bit extreme.
I couldn't help but notice that he picked the CEO of a company that makes the worst, most bloated, least valuable proprietary products I've ever used. Say what you will about the bloat in Microsoft products, but at least the bloat is there because they are trying their damnedest to create a robust platform and maintain compatibility. I've never seen a single benefit to the bloat that Symantec products have, and have often found myself wondering how you would even notice malware and viruses on a system that has their antivirus products on it.
What has this guy done except lead a company that makes a crappy product that only succeeds because of their volume license deals with computer manufacturers and Microsoft's own ineptness and inability to produce a secure product?
Symantec produces software that slows down your computer, makes your other software stop working, and makes itself difficult to uninstall. Pretty much the same as a virus.
or else!
open source initiatives through sun ceo, ex yahoo exec for admn. post, symantec exec for ceo .... totally investing in the upcoming tech age.
u.s. is going to shake up and lead again after all. just at the time we thought it was going down the drain. amazing.
Read radical news here
The Navy-Marine Corp. Intranet (NMCI) project has been seen as a huge, overpriced failure. It's also due for re-bidding in 2010, I believe, because EDS decided it wasn't a profitable contract.
I wonder if a general push towards OSS in the federal government will even lead to an eviction of the unholy Exchange servers that are part of the current NMCI.
For a second there, I read "Jack Thompson"
It certainly wasn't Obama, but SOMEONE in the administration that asked McNealy to write a paper on open source in government. That is not the same as leading a "charge."
Interestingly, Symantec reports earnings today. Gotta believe at least one of the analysts will ask about the reports (and be given a long winded "no comment."
Most of the comments here are quite negative towards Mr. Thompson. He is actually a very impressive person. I suggest people who have decided to base their judgment of him on the company he ran watch the episode of CEO Exchange with him in it. http://www.pbs.org/wttw/ceoexchange/episodes/ceo_jthompson.html
You all could be thankful that it isn't someone who believes the Internet is a set of tubes, which you cannot dump large objects on, as you could the bed of a flatbed truck.
Going forward, taxes will now be referred to as a Yearly Government Subscription Fee.
What's your point? :grin:
http://www.symantec.com/norton/macintosh/antivirus