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Obama Looking To Symantec CEO For Commerce

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the fear-monger-your-way-to-the-top dept.

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."

19 of 168 comments (clear)

  1. Guilty of supplying Parasitic bloatware by Finallyjoined!!! · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:Guilty of supplying Parasitic bloatware by FlopEJoe · · Score: 4, Funny

      Sounds perfect for a government official!

    2. Re:Guilty of supplying Parasitic bloatware by couchslug · · Score: 5, Funny

      "What can we now expect?"

      A Department of Commerce that adds positions throughout government which affect essential services and are difficult to remove without system damage?

      --
      "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
  2. Oh great- by FredFredrickson · · Score: 5, Funny

    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
    1. Re:Oh great- by Jedi+Alec · · Score: 5, Funny

      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.

      Actually he might be a blessing in disguise. After 4 years of this guy, the only hope for the USA will be repartitioning the country and then a swift reinstall of the operating system. Looks like the hardcore liberalists will get their wishes after all ;-)

      --

      People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
    2. Re:Oh great- by Gilmoure · · Score: 4, Funny

      I like parties. I like to get drunk and take my pants off. Maybe start a fire or go yell at the dolphins at Sea World.

      --
      I drank what? -- Socrates
  3. It'll be news when he asks Stallman to work by xzvf · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:It'll be news when he asks Stallman to work by jo_ham · · Score: 4, Funny

      Isn't it called Gnupocalypse?

    2. Re:It'll be news when he asks Stallman to work by operagost · · Score: 5, Funny

      Excuse me, I belive you mean GNU/Apocalyse.

      - RMS

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
  4. Other industry associations by gravos · · Score: 4, Informative

    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!
    1. Re:Other industry associations by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Funny

      Thompson had a career at ... Seagate Technology.

      OMFG! Nobody reboot ANYTHING at the Dept. of Commerce!

      --
      My blog
  5. feature creep by gandhi_2 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Obama's administration, feature creep, and bloat. Just like Symantic.

    --
    THL phish sticks
  6. Any explanation? by nine-times · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  7. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  8. Re:Symmantec out for the count by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  9. lame by nilbog · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

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    or else!
  10. Re:One of the worst proprietary vendors... by nvrrobx · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Having been an engineer at Symantec for 5 1/2 years, I can tell you that what they suffer from is the inability to build new products themselves, or a management team that refuses to try (you choose).

    It's a company of "buy everything you can see, who cares if you can integrate it". Very little in the way of shared components, every product looks and works different, very little interoperability, etc.

    It seemed like we always bought the worst codebases we could find, then tried to fix it. It's not due to a lack of good engineering talent - there is plenty at the company.

    While I think JWT is a nice guy, one only needs to look at the purchase of Veritas to find a completely failed business model, and a CEO who doesn't seem to "get it". Even after that, they continued (and still continue) to snatch up other companies with little regard to how it will really affect shareholders. Nice guys don't make CEOs.

    When John Schwarz left to take the CEO spot at Business Objects and we kept Gary Bloom (CEO, Veritas) - I knew we were in trouble.

  11. Re:One of the worst proprietary vendors... by davie · · Score: 4, Informative

    The Democrat and Republican parties are the two sides of a counterfeit coin. Heads? they win, tails? we lose. Their core agenda is unified, and they have perfected the art of keeping half the country fighting the other half to support it. I'm waiting for an ex-Professional wrestler to show up with magic sunglasses (I won't fight it, I'll put them on right away).

    --
    slashdot broke my sig
  12. Has anyone actually seen him by lyz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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