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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Wade Courtney [mailto:wade -dot- courtney -at- gmail -dot- com]
> Sent: July 22, 2004 12:08 PM
> To: mlist -at- safenet-inc -dot- com
> Cc: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
> Subject: Re: Chapter Overviews
>
>
> Well if "ya just don't ask" I guess your out of luck. If you really
> wanted to get in contact with your users you would find a way instead
> of making a bunch of excuses.
>
> But then again if everyone is beig layed off, I don't know if I'd
> worry too much about documentation, I'd make sure my resume were up to
> date.
No. We were bought by Rainbow last year, and before they
entirely made up their minds what to do with us, they were
bought by SafeNet. SafeNet seemed surprised that Rainbow
even had a little appendage called Chrysalis-ITS, but
after an enthusiastic selling job by our senior honchos,
they decided that they really, really liked us. However,
what they really wanted was the engineering group that
creates and maintains our particular product lines. The
other functions -- that made sense when we were a self-sufficient,
stand-alone company (like HR, finance, marketing, production,
etc.) were all redundant.
Some people were offered the option to move to the US (Belcamp, MD)
while the rest were given decent packages and 90 to 120 days
to clear out. The engineering group was kept largely intact.
I'm part of engineering, and the onliest techy writer.
We're already hiring new engineers/programmers/architects.
> BTW, this morning is overcast, but that will burn off by lunch, then
> it will be bright, blue and hot.
Bull. It was hazy, and then it started to burn off, and then
the first shower arrived. More showers and thunder-showers are
expected for the rest of the day.
See? It's all a matter of perspective. Sometimes different
conditions or a different location call for a different perspective.
It is warm and muggy, though.
I've never met one of our end-users. A couple of customer honchos
(suits) came through on inspection tours a couple of times,
but they have nothing to do with the trenches. A couple of
first-line customers (like Entrust) are here in Ottawa, but
they are just more engineers, seeing that our product and theirs
work together when they sell them to the real end customers
around the world. The Entrust and VeriSign and other partner/
re-sellers have had very little to say about our docs (maybe
I'm just that good.... ahem). The big government and VISA
and UBS and other customer-customers have heavily fortified
(like in Mission Impossible), vault-like server rooms where
they keep their root CAs on our HSMs and servers. People like
me don't get to visit and shoot the breeze with their operations
and security folk. Hell, even their vice-presidents don't get
in unescorted.
Besides, there's no travel budget. I value the integrity of
my work, but not enough to pay my own dime to go visit customers.
Hell, I won't even pay my own way to an STC conference that's
held in a vacation destination.
/k
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