Taking advantage of the fact that I announced that I would be away for the last week, Rothman spiked my exclusive with his usual sharp-edged sarcasm and said I would be stupid not to praise my erstwhile employers, or indeed the incumbents.
Whilst I have always been friends with the people at Ingrian, and owe much of my career to them, this is of course, nonsense. I made a point of saying clearly when I joined that no-one would stop me speaking my mind here. Before, during and since the takeover was announced I was treated with nothing but respect, assured of my job safety, and handed over to SafeNet like the precious nugget that I am. This is also bollocks of course, but I wasn't nearly as deferential in the process as Mike supposes it is wise for me to be.
First off, I get job offers like Britney gets court orders, I'm not quaking in my boots here.
Second, I knew this was happening, it wasn't sprung on me.
Third, OK, there was some back-dating stuff going on a while back, when everyone and his dog was doing it, but that was the old guard, these are the new guys. SafeNet are a good security company with deep pockets. They have a very high profile in the private sector, especially financials, certainly in the UK and Europe they do anyway. Ingrian has the retail space cornered, and all they need is more people to cover more territory. Putting the 2 together completes a picture for me, it doesn't detract anywhere.
I hope SafeNet wouldn't gag me for speaking my mind, but I hope they wouldn't want me to go saying they were wonderful and marvelous without having something to back it up either. I stand by what I said. I think this is a smart move for both companies, Ingrian gets a cash injection and a broader sales base, SafeNet gets a great piece of kit and a really tight knit company with some fantastic people in it. Morale has rarely been so high in a company that I've worked for (which makes it sound like it's my fault). I don't make anything on the stock options, but I've only been with Ingrian for 6 months, I wouldn't expect it. Other engineers may be more annoyed at that.
I don't even know what my new role will be in SafeNet. I've been in Venice, freezing my nuts off on the Grand Canal for the past week. I'll speak to them next week and let you know. In the meantime I'm planning my next trip Amsterdam at Easter before the round of security conferences starts in April. Maybe there'll be a Rothman v. Newby UBC (Ultimate Blogging Contest) fight at RSA?
Bring it on!
No comments:
Post a Comment