Careers: Interviews
Rising IT Company
This week, Stephen Ibaraki, I.S.P.,
has an exclusive interview with Stu Sjouwerman,
President of Sunbelt Software, one of the fastest
growing companies in the North America, ranked # 409
in the 2001 Inc. 500 List ; Editor of W2Knews with
more than 500,000 readers every week; and
best-selling author of several books (http://www.w2knews.com)
*****
Q: First of all, thank you Stu for agreeing to this
interview. What does your family think about your
career as a noted author, editor, and president of
one of the fastest growing companies in North
America?
A: They are thrilled and proud. And of course they
are now telling me they'll be here for a month at
Christmas time and lounge in our new pool.
Q: Can you detail your personal history, the
decisions you made, the jobs you have undertaken,
and the roles you have played to get to your present
position as head of Sunbelt Software? Which areas
will you be targeting in the future, with your
company?
A: I have been 22 years in IT, mainly in sales, then
marketing, then management and finally business
owner. We are sticking to what we know, System
Management Utilities for the Windows NT/2000/XP and
soon .NET market
Q: It rare to have a best-seller, it’s even rarer to
have a best-selling technical book. Can you provide
a quick overview of your past, present, and future
books? And, can you provide five key tips you could
share with the audience?
A: We leveraged the Internet right from early 1995.
Built a very large (actually the world's largest)
database of opt-in email addresses of people
managing NT/W2K and looking for add-on tools. 5
Tips? Easy:
- Build an email database
- Provide useful information that educates in
a peer-to-peer fashion and generates website
traffic/downloads
- Ask people to tell their friends.
- Provide excellent and instant service.
- Goto 1
Q: You have built-up your newsletter over the years
to take a leading position. Share your secrets on
how you did this remarkable job? And, how did you
build your company into it’s current position of one
of the fastest growing companies – can you provide
tips?
A: We started early so our timing was right. And we
saw the potential of the net early. I have always
believed in email and never in banners. So we built
an email address database first.
Q: Look into your crystal ball and tell us where
technology is today and where is it going?
A: Evolutionary. More into wireless but slowly. I
see no wild disruptive events. Here is the Crystal
Ball issue for this year:
http://www.w2knews.com/index.cfm?action=view&issue=141
Q: What are your views on top four programming
environments and their future?
A: I have to admit that my viewpoint to a large
degree is limited to the Microsoft environment, so
the two things I see are Visual .NET and XML as THE
major two winners for the next couple of years. But
there is a saying. "This is so obvious it's like
kicking in an open door".
Q: For those relatively new in the computing field
and for seasoned veterans, which 10 areas should
they target for future study, what are the
high-growth areas, and can you provide specific
advice?
A: They are:
- Network Security
- System Security
- Physical (site) Security
- Biometrics
- Wetware Security Policy and enforcement of
it
- High Availability and Redundancy
- Windows 2000 and Cisco Security
certification
- SANS Security Certification courses
- Windows 2000 and Exchange 2000 System
Management
- People Skills are getting more and more
important for techies like us.
Q: What would you do different if you started again,
having gone through this authoring experience over
the years?
A: Our run in with the anti-spam community was no
fun. I'd have liked to not have that experience: See
this link
http://www.sunbelt-software.com/rbl_story.htm
Q: What would be your recommended top references for
the serious developer? For the serious system
administrator?
A. Out of the "How Are We Doing" survey came some
other very useful info. These were the most popular
other technical sites apart from Microsoft
MSDN/Technet and Sunbelt-software.com. High on the
list were:
- ZDNET: 50%
- CNet: 44%
- TechRepublic: 40%
- Brainbuzz/Cramsession: 25%
- PCworld: 19%
- SearchWin2000: 17%
Q: It’s a blank slate, what added comments would you
like to give to enterprise corporations and
organizations?
A: Our recent market research points to the fact
that corporations have woken up to the fact that
security and high availability need way more
attention and budget. It's time that everyone gets
going on this. It is our mutual IT responsibility to
keep things going and protect our business and
economy. |
|
|