Jim Zimmermann – Founder, Owner, Sr. Advisor
Jim Zimmermann has enjoyed a long and varied career in the IT industry. During his 30+ years in the industry, Jim has worked for a variety of companies and has started and sold three successful startups. The startups were (in reverse chronological order):
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Analyst Views – A media company that tracked the technology research market and the views of leading analyst firms. Sold the property to Bitpipe, who was acquired by TechTarget, who sold the product to Northern Light.
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ERPSuperSite – A media company that provided a community destination for people involved in enterprise resource planning. Sold the property to TechRepublic, who was acquired by Gartner, who sold TechRepublic to CNET.
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Full Color Computing – The first company to provide high-end photo retouch and color prepress software on Unix-based Silicon Graphics workstations. Sold the company to Alias Research, who was acquired by Silicon Graphics
During all of the startups, mergers, and acquisitions, Jim held various positions including Executive Editor of Analyst Information Products at Bitpipe, Director of Content Licensing & Acquisition for TechRepublic, and Program Director for Electronic Commerce Strategies for IBM Global Services. Jim has also worked for Fujitsu, Mercator, Alias Research, Decision Resources, Ashton-Tate, and the technology companies of Dun & Bradstreet.
Prior to Jim’s involvement in the business-side of IT, Jim was an accomplished programmer and development director. His first job was to write Fortran programs for an environmental engineering firm. He then become an APL programmer doing statistical analyses for the firm. Through a series of interesting moves, Jim ended up writing the first commercially available email program for the brand-new IBM PC – developed on a prototype IBM PC with a wire-wrapped motherboard, 64K of memory, two 5 ¼ inch floppy drive (hard drives were not available for PCs then) and it used Western Union for communication (because there wasn’t any Internet available then).
Jim graduated Magna Cum Laude with a degree in Natural Science and Math from St. Thomas Aquinas College in Sparkill, NY.
Linda Strong, Senior Writer, Editor and Project Coordinator
Linda is the author of seventeen published books, and has made numerous appearances on television and radio. She lectures at schools, libraries and for organizations across the country on topics as varied as the history of rockets to the in-depth role of specific regiments during the Civil War. She has given lectures at institutions such as the Smithsonian Institution and West Point, and was a featured speaker at the site of the Battle of Gettysburg.
Linda began her career as a Research Chemist for Fisher Scientific’s medical diagnostic division. From initial research through product development, to product launch and customer training, she was involved in all phases of the process, including document preparation and regulatory review. She was also the division’s senior writer for all news and product information for the company’s newsletter.
After receiving her Masters degree in English from Iona College, she began writing articles on science and history. By 1990, her career shifted away from the lab and she became a fulltime writer and lecturer. Linda also holds a Bachelor of Science from St. Thomas Aquinas College with dual majors in chemistry and English.