howard@metheus.UUCP (06/24/83)
First the "facts" (from The Oregonian): James C. Towne, a former Tektronix Inc. vice president who left to run Seattle's Microsoft Corp., has resigned the Washington post to become president of Metheus Corp., a young but fast-growing Hillsboro [Oregon] high technology company. Towne, 40, will assume the new post Wednesday [June 22, 1983]. [He did.] He apparently was chosen by Metheus' founder and president, Gene Chao, another former Tektronix employee. Jack Ramsey, a spokesman for the company, said Towne would also become chief operating officer. He said Chao will remain company chairman and chief executive officer. Towne will handle the day-to-day afairs of Metheus, while Chao's functions "will be more concerned with long range planning," Ramsey said. "Jim and Gene spent a lot of years together at Tektronix," Ramsey said. "They're about the same age and their styles will be very compatible." Towne, who had been president and chief executive at Microsoft, a computer programming company, left that post "effective Monday," based upon a mutual agreement between him and Microsoft co-founder and Chairman William H. Gates, according to company spokeswoman Pamela Edstrom. In a press statement released Tuesday, Towne said: "Microsoft's future goals require that the company become stronger in consumer marketing. As a result, we concluded that Microsoft would be better served by someone whose skills would more closely fit the new direction." Now for my (Metheus-slanted) perspective: Towne seems to me like a nearly ideal choice. Prior to Microsoft, he was VP and General Manager for the Instruments Division at Tek, which had about $500M in annual sales. So, now, he should have sufficient experience with both hardware AND software to deal with Metheus' products (like a VLSI/CAD workstation with multiple 68000s and a large suite of design tools running 4.? BSD UN|X). Also he should be able to manage a rapidly growing manufacturing group. My main reason for posting this, other than being informative, is to see if anyone out there might have a different perspective. Anyone who worked with/under/over Towne at Tek or Microsoft? To avoid burdening the net, please reply by mail unless you're sure it's of general interest. Howard A. Landman teklabs!ogcvax!metheus!howard