Taking talent from tattered rivals

It may be counterintuitive, but a weak economy is the perfect time to recruit strong talent from battered rivals.

That's the line of thinking at Answerthink, where CEO Ted Fernandez is bringing in some fresh blood to help strengthen the consulting firm.

Recent Answerthink recruits include MarchFirst veteran Fred Halperin (now managing director of IT strategy solutions); Technology Solutions veteran Jay Andrews (managing director of supply-chain solutions); and iXL veteran Kenneth Mathis (managing director of financial services solutions).

"The recent turmoil in the market place has given us the opportunity to recruit outstanding talent with deep industry and business experience," says Ted Fernandez, CEO of Answerthink. "Our history of profitability and solid base of Global 2000 clients makes us an attractive destination for talented leaders like Fred, Jay and Ken."

• Oracle is quick to praise a new study, which says that the software giant is the leading provider of intelligent CRM solutions. Sounds impressive, until you discover that Oracle sponsored the study.

• EDS continues to push forward with its Cyber Security Institute, which helps customers and consultants combat hackers and other security threats. The institute recently added security training courses from RSA Security. EDS will host the courses on the Web. Sounds like tempting bait for a hacker.

• IBM Global Services appears to be the safe choice in a soft economy. Global Services' revenue grew 12 percent in Q1 to US$8.5 billion. IBM's services contract backlog stands at US$87 billion. Can you blame HP for wanting to be a services giant, too?

• You don't hear much about Dave Cutler anymore. The father of Digital VMS and Windows NT 3.1 is still at Microsoft. VP Jim Allchin says Cutler is developing one (or more) 64-bit versions of Windows 2000 for Microsoft. Allchin hints that there may even be plans for a Windows 2000 release for non-Intel hardware, much like the old days of NT running on Alpha, PowerPC and MIPS hardware.

• I sent Cisco CEO John Chambers an e-mail about three weeks ago. Since that time, three Cisco employees have asked me if I still want Chambers to reply to my message.

I'm beginning to understand why Wall Street thinks the company has gotten a bit bloated. One timely reply would have been fine.