I have fond memories of the early days at Edmark when a man who was very enthusiastic about creating exciting software owned it. I can remember having some concern when he sold Edmark. However, a crew of very successful women ran the new company from the CEO on down. Many of the people I had contact with had classroom teaching experience.
This new group created even more fabulous software. For a company that created software aimed at all youngsters, they incorporated more accommodations for those with disabilities. For example, a scanning option was often built in to the software, sound could be turned on or off, various levels were available, etc. In recent years I've gotten the feeling that Edmark has fantastic programmers who are having a wonderful time developing truly exciting software.
You probably know that IBM purchased Edmark some time ago. Everyone I talked to assured me that not much would change at Edmark in the transfer of ownership. Recently I received a public relations piece detailing the background of the Executives at Edmark. Bernard Rice the new CEO of Edmark is an IBM Vice President with 23 years experience with IBM. His background is in marketing, finance and sales.
Of the 13 executive biographies in the piece, only four were women. One of the men and two of the women had classroom experience. Maybe I'm a sexist, but why would IBM entrust the future of such a creative capable company to men?
Just as I was thinking of writing something about such a change at Edmark I received another public relations piece on Edmark. This time it was the news that Edmark had just been purchased from IBM by the Ireland-based Riverdeep Group. According to the release the two companies compliment each other nicely.
I don't have a conclusion to all this; I just hope that Edmark will continue producing the kind of software that has been their hallmark. If any of you have anything you'd like to add to this discussion I'd love to hear it. crucker@crucker.com