- 注册
- 2002-10-07
- 消息
- 402,640
- 荣誉分数
- 77
- 声望点数
- 228
Ron Zambonini loved golf, so perhaps it was fitting that he spent his last day watching the final round of the British Open.
The former chief executive of Cognos died Sunday evening, the victim of a lung cancer that had been discovered last year. He was 70.
Zambonini, born in Scotland of Italian shopkeepers, was one of this country’s most unusual, and successful, tech leaders. In public, he was a consummate showman, quite willing to star in skits aimed at pumping up employee energy during annual sales presentations. A large, burly man, he played a motorcycle gang leader, Mick Jagger and Braveheart. One year, dressed as a rodeo champion, he jumped through a ring of fire.
Away from the company, however, Zambonini was an intensely private family man. Several years ago, he and his wife Gail moved to Toronto to be closer to their children.
Zambonini, will be remembered throughout the business world for his steady stewardship of one of the country’s most successful technology companies. He was appointed CEO of Cognos in 1995, when the data software company was a mere stripling with $120.7 million U.S. in revenues.
The year he retired, Cognos was well on its way to establishing itself as giant. Revenues were closing in on $700 million U.S., generated by selling business intelligence products to more than 22,000 customers in 135 countries. The company had nearly 3,000 employees.
Three years later, IBM Corp. of Armonk, N.Y. shelled out nearly $5 billion U.S. to acquire all of Cognos’ shares. The Ottawa software company by then was generating annual sales of $1 billion U.S. and employed 3,500.
It was a bittersweet moment for Ottawa’s high-tech sector because it meant we lost a standalone anchor — Cognos would disappear into one of the industry’s true leviathans, and key decisions about R&D and marketing would be made south of the border. But the sale of the firm was probably necessary because the software sector was rapidly consolidating, and Cognos wasn’t big enough to do the buying. Certainly not for want of trying by Zambonini and his successor as CEO, Rob Ashe.
More to come
查看原文...
The former chief executive of Cognos died Sunday evening, the victim of a lung cancer that had been discovered last year. He was 70.
Zambonini, born in Scotland of Italian shopkeepers, was one of this country’s most unusual, and successful, tech leaders. In public, he was a consummate showman, quite willing to star in skits aimed at pumping up employee energy during annual sales presentations. A large, burly man, he played a motorcycle gang leader, Mick Jagger and Braveheart. One year, dressed as a rodeo champion, he jumped through a ring of fire.
Away from the company, however, Zambonini was an intensely private family man. Several years ago, he and his wife Gail moved to Toronto to be closer to their children.
Zambonini, will be remembered throughout the business world for his steady stewardship of one of the country’s most successful technology companies. He was appointed CEO of Cognos in 1995, when the data software company was a mere stripling with $120.7 million U.S. in revenues.
The year he retired, Cognos was well on its way to establishing itself as giant. Revenues were closing in on $700 million U.S., generated by selling business intelligence products to more than 22,000 customers in 135 countries. The company had nearly 3,000 employees.
Three years later, IBM Corp. of Armonk, N.Y. shelled out nearly $5 billion U.S. to acquire all of Cognos’ shares. The Ottawa software company by then was generating annual sales of $1 billion U.S. and employed 3,500.
It was a bittersweet moment for Ottawa’s high-tech sector because it meant we lost a standalone anchor — Cognos would disappear into one of the industry’s true leviathans, and key decisions about R&D and marketing would be made south of the border. But the sale of the firm was probably necessary because the software sector was rapidly consolidating, and Cognos wasn’t big enough to do the buying. Certainly not for want of trying by Zambonini and his successor as CEO, Rob Ashe.
More to come
查看原文...
