We're mobiling around here to get the blog launched to the ITSinsider community. I spent most of the previous two weeks researching, writing, and fact checking a story on the TPI- Equaterra merger for Kennedy's Global IT Services Report Newsletter. As soon as it's published, I'll post it on the site.
Part of my research on the newco, "Veritage" included looking up one of my old newsletters, The Integrator from 1992. I may have been the first industry reporter to report on TPI. The spectacular growth this business has enjoyed over the course of my career always amazes me. Denny McGuire (founder, TPI) had 5 employees when I interviewed him; he was almost shy and humble about his success. Denny was always charming and likeable. He plugged my newsletter in public forums, and both he and Warren Gallant (his first employee and ex-partner) spoke at my first industry conference. I got a kick out of how Denny would give me a backhand compliment by referring to my newsletter as the Vanity Fair of the business. It was a fair label and one that I privately enjoyed. You see, in those days, and to some degree it still holds today: this is not a widget business. It's a business about people– their personalities, their relationships, their debts, their loyalities, their motivations, their character. Tracking this business is about knowing the leadership of the business. Really knowing them– knowing how they'll behave in a situation based on past performance. I find it all fascinating. To be perfectly frank, the business of outsourcing sometimes bores me, but the high stakes, big business drama that drives these big deals and alliances is great stuff.
For all the billions of dollars and all the fanfare– it's the competition, the win, the score– that makes the game interesting. Twenty-first century gladiators. Who wouldn't want to write about that?
