Dataset, Inc.: A Corporate Intrigue

By Alan Paul Rossiter

Dataset, Inc. is a multinational software company, the leader in its particular niche market but something is wrong. The development of the next generation of Windows-based software is badly behind schedule, and the companys competitive position is in jeopardy. The companys owner, suspecting that the delays are deliberate, bugs the office of the Chief Executive Officer. A boardroom rift follows and a deadly, high-stakes international struggle ensues for mastery of the software business.
Meanwhile Jim Thornton, a mid-level manager in Dataset, Inc., is thrust into prominence by the resignation of his senior colleagues, and becomes the companys Regional Manager for the US Gulf Coast. He tries to stabilize the situation, but things continue to deteriorate rapidly. Soon Jim is battling to save the business and protect his own job and those of his colleagues and perhaps also his life.
Dataset, Inc. is a story of loyalty, greed and betrayal set in the cutthroat world of the contemporary software industry.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Oct 29, 2000
• ISBN: 9781469766058

Alan Paul Rossiter

Alan Rossiter holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Cambridge. He has lived and worked in Africa, England and North America, and for a time was president of a small engineering and software company. He lives in Bellaire, Texas with his wife Belinda and two sons, Daniel and Jason.

Book preview

I

THE RIFT

CHAPTER 1

It is the secretaries (sorry, administrative assistants) who secretly run the corporate world, so it’s not surprising that I first got news of the rift in Dataset, Inc. from Georgina. I was in Seattle, working on the Boeing job at the time. I called in to my office in Houston for messages around 10 a.m. that Tuesday morning, 28 March 1995. It was Georgina, the Senior Administrator, who answered, and from the tone of her voice I knew immediately that something was wrong.

What’s happened, Georgina? I asked.

Oh, Jim! Harry Gilbert and Ben Jackson have been fired! she answered, plainly very upset.

What! What for? Harry Gilbert was President and CEO of the company, and Ben Jackson was Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing. Both men were highly respected in the industry, both inside and outside of our own company. The prospect of their departure from Dataset, Inc. was unthinkable.

Word is they lifted the new Windows code, and have being trying to set up a new company with it, Georgina continued.

That’s impossible—isn’t it? Who told you? I stammered. This was getting worse.

Melinda.

That settled it. Melinda Graves was personal assistant to Dr. Eddie Stephanides, Dataset Inc’s Founder and Chairman. It had to be true.

Where are Bernie Jones and George Martin? I asked.

As you know, they went to Palo Alto for the Special Board Meeting, said Georgina. They’re still there. Neither of them has called in since early yesterday.

How many people in the Houston office know about this? I asked, thinking hard.

Only me, as far as I know.

Okay. Please keep it that way for the moment, I instructed her. I’ll find out what I can, and then I’ll get back to you.

I rang off, and immediately dialed our Palo Alto, California headquarters. Jenny Cole took my call.

Sorry, Jim. Dr. Stephanides and Mr. Jones are in a meeting right now. Can I take a message?

I left two telephone numbers, the contact number at Boeing and my hotel number, and asked for either Eddie or Bernie to call me as soon as possible. Eddie, the company’s owner, might consider himself too busy to talk to me. However I felt sure that Bernie, who was my immediate boss as Senior Vice President and Regional Manager, Gulf Coast Region, would make the effort to call.

No one called back that day, or the next. Palo Alto was like a black hole: light went in, but nothing came out. ***

Dataset, Inc’s 1995 brochure provided a very positive and confident report of the first eighteen years of the company’s history. The account was generally accurate, although a little sanitized. The more recent history of the company, in particular, had been rather more turbulent than the brochure suggested.

Turnover had been around fifteen million dollars in 1994. Growth, although not dramatic compared to some other high tech companies, had been steady. Eddie Stephanides was still the sole owner, and it was rumored that the company was worth about forty million dollars. That made him a moderately wealthy man, on paper at least. There had been talk in early 1994 of taking the company public, and also half-promises that Eddie would distribute shares in the company to established employees, including myself.

However, things were starting to look less positive by late-1994. A year earlier, amidst great fanfare, Dataset, Inc. had announced plans to release the new Windows™ version of our flagship software product, DATMAN—to be called DATWIN—by the end of 1994. Our clients applauded, and those of us in the Operations Department waited hopefully for the alpha test software. We were still waiting in December 1994; and within the Operations Department there were the usual quips about the first law of software development: it takes four times as long as you think, costs four times as much, and delivers one quarter of the benefit.

The delays in releasing DATWIN were being met with impatience by our clients, and orders began to falter in early 1995. The problem was that no-one wanted to start a new project with the old software, knowing that it was due to be phased out imminently by a much more user-friendly system with the familiar look and feel of Windows™. Added to that, our competition was catching up. Prior to this we had been the undisputed market leaders in our particular niche; but now two other companies—InDat and SoftDat—were reported to be close to bringing Windows™ products to the market. Unquestionably the functionality of their core product was inferior to ours; but for the vast majority of potential clients that was less important than operation in the Windows™ environment.

By March 1995 concerns were growing about future cash flow, the jokes about software developers had stopped, and the public offering was on the back burner. At this time Dataset, Inc. employed nearly eighty people, ten in Houston, five in our new London office, and the rest in Palo Alto. In Houston we had a small buffer of work, largely due to Boeing and a couple of smaller projects in Texas and the neighboring states. These provided enough work to keep the Houston applications staff (which I headed as Vice President and Operations Manager for the Gulf Coast) fully loaded until mid-May. Meanwhile we were struggling to get commitments for projects using the new Windows™ version of DATMAN from a number of clients, including the Shell Deer Park Refinery, Amoco Chemicals in Texas City, and Pasadena Oil. The situation in Palo Alto, however, was more critical: They had four times as many applications engineers, and a total workload that was only marginally greater than ours. As a result, by what came to be known as Black Monday (27 March, 1995), nearly half of the group was idle. This situation had caused distress for all of us, and especially for top management. But could it really be true that Harry and Ben had sabotaged the development project and stolen the software? It seemed inconceivable.

***

On the Wednesday evening Jeff Russell (my Dataset co-worker) and I went with Pete Bradley, our contact man from Boeing, to the Key Arena. In the past I had never been a basketball fan. For a start it simply wasn’t in my British heritage, and I really couldn’t see the attraction in watching big men running up and down a small court trying to put a big ball into a small hoop. However, after the Houston Rockets won the NBA Championship in 1994 I joined the city’s euphoria, in a reserved British way, and started taking more interest in the game. Boeing maintained a number of season tickets for Sonics games, and as the Rockets were due to play that night Pete kindly arranged to get us seats. The game was terrific, and took my mind off the troubling matters that had beset me for the past couple of days. Hakeem the Dream was great, and got 36 points with 14 rebounds. The Rockets won the game by 101 to 96. However, by the time I left the arena I was already drifting into a very subdued mood. I could not help reflecting on what was happening in Dataset, Inc., and I was increasingly anxious to know more about the recent developments in Palo Alto.

I must have been abnormally distracted as I left the arena, because Pete remarked on it. Well, your team won, but somehow you don’t seem your usual cheerful self, Jim. Is something wrong? Anything I can do?

Oh, sorry. Does it show that much? I sighed. I’ve got a lot on my mind, I guess. Just stuff, you know. I’ll be all right. Thanks, Pete.

Jeff and I went back to the Sheraton Hotel where we were staying, and retired for the night. At 1.30 a.m. I was awakened by the telephone. It was Bernie Jones, Senior Vice President and Regional Manager, Gulf Coast Region, calling from Palo Alto.

Sorry to be calling so late Jim—or should I say, sorry to be calling so early.

That’s okay Bernie, I responded, yawning. I haven’t been sleeping too well these past couple of nights anyway. What can you tell me?

What have you heard already?

My information comes from the top—from Georgina herself.

Despite himself, and the lateness of the hour, Bernie chuckled at that. What did the oracle have to say?

That Gilbert and Jackson were trying to lift the DATWIN code and got fired. They were trying to use it to set up a new company. Is that true?

That’s what Stephanides claims. Did she tell you how Eddie claims to have found out, though?

No, I answered. That she didn’t.

He bugged the offices. Every wretched office in the Palo Alto complex!

I thought that I must have misheard.

He what?

He bugged the offices.

Surely that’s illegal! I almost shouted.

We’ve discussed that with the lawyers. It appears to lie in a gray area. The offices belong to Dataset, Inc. and it seems that the State of California upholds the right of a company to snoop on its employees on its own premises. Harry and Ben could take it to court, but they have been advised that they would have less than a fifty percent chance of success. A competitor’s premises, or a private residence—well, that would be a different matter.

I had been in Palo Alta only two weeks earlier and had met with several of the people there, including Harry Gilbert and Eddie Stephanides himself. It occurred to me that our conversations must have been recorded. The thought was somehow unnerving, even though there was nothing even vaguely incriminating in the things we discussed.

So Gilbert and Jackson were caught in the act, eh?

That’s what Stephanides claims. Harry denies it, but in the interests of saving the company from a serious legal battle he and Ben Jackson have agreed to leave without any severance package.

It took a while to digest that. What did it really imply? I didn’t choose to press that line with Bernie, though—not at 1:45 a.m. So how has everyone else responded in Pal Alto?

Livid, I think is the word. Everyone feels violated by the cursed bugs. Stephanides is likely to get lynched, I’d say.

But if Gilbert and Jackson were lifting the code…

But what if they weren’t? We have only Stephanides’ word. No one else has heard the recordings from the bugs. How do we know what is really on them—or even if they exist?

True, I replied. But if there is no evidence, why would Stephanides want Gilbert and Jackson out? And why would they go so meekly?

I can’t answer that. All I know is that the whole thing stinks, and for my money Stephanides is the stinker. By the way, one other thing I should tell you. We have a new CEO—a fellow by the name of Gary Patterson.

Oh—where did he spring from so suddenly? I inquired.

He seems to be some kind of a friend of Eddie’s. A whiz kid from Apple who took early retirement, I believe. He and Stephanides have been playing detective together for the past couple of months, and put this rap together for Gilbert and Jackson.

What type of person is he, would you say? I asked.

Bernie paused for a moment, trying to find the right words. Very business-like, I’d say. Down to earth. Gets straight to the point. I don’t trust him further than I can spit.

Why would a guy like that want to get involved in a mess like this, I wonder?

Beats me, said Bernie. Masochist, perhaps.

When are you and George coming back to Houston? I asked. George Martin was Vice President, Gulf Coast Sales; he had traveled with Bernie to Palo Alto for the Board Meeting that week.

There was another pause. I’m not sure. Things are crazy here like you wouldn’t believe. All sorts of closed door meetings—away from the office, of course, because of the bugs. Hopefully we’ll be able to come back at the weekend.

It was nearly 2 a.m. when I got back to bed. At 2.30 a.m. the ’phone rang again. It was Eddie Stephanides.

Doesn’t anyone sleep in Palo Alto these days? I asked.

No he replied. It certainly sounded as if he hadn’t slept himself for a week. Sorry to be calling so late. I have been tied up in meetings until just a few minutes ago. He paused, suddenly recognizing the significance of my comment. You’ve been talking to someone else in Palo Alto?

Yes, Bernie called about an hour ago.

Another pause, and a deep sigh, greeted me from the other end of the line. What did he tell you?

I gave him a fairly comprehensive report, missing out the bit about Eddie being a stinker. I figured it might not be good for my career advancement to say that to the big boss.

Part of that is true, conceded Eddie. But there are several things you should know. The first point is this: Gilbert and Jackson were trying to destroy Dataset, Inc. They diverted the Windows version development work to produce code for themselves, and planned to leave us to die on the vine with 1980s vintage software.

You have proof?

Yes, he replied. Absolutely. We used a reputable firm of private detectives; a lawyer who specializes in this type of situation advised us throughout. Bernie was right when he told you that office bugs were involved. He is wrong, though, about the number of bugs. The only office that was bugged was Harry Gilbert’s—his office and his telephone. That is all. Gilbert himself has been spreading rumors that there were more than that, trying to turn the staff against me, making them think I invaded their privacy. But that’s absurd. There were clear indications that Gilbert was interfering with the DATWIN development work; the bugs were there to get definitive proof. As it happened, they also confirmed that Jackson was in the game.

I thought for a while. So what now, Eddie?

At the Board meeting, as you know, we appointed a new CEO, Gary Patterson. We have also brought in a new manager for the development group, Bill Prescot. He is a very sharp guy, out of Borman. His remit is to review the status of the DATWIN code, and get it on the street by the end of April. That should keep us on track with most of our clients. Meanwhile, our detectives are closing in on the pirated version of DATWIN, and finalizing the case against Gilbert and Jackson. We’ll see them behind bars for a good few years, I think.

I bit my tongue. Eddie no doubt relished the idea of imprisonment for Gilbert and Jackson, but there was a much more pressing issue. I hesitated. But can we realistically get the DATWIN code to market that quickly? I asked. It seems to me that it was originally a one-year project. Is this Prescot fellow really such a whiz kid that he can cobble it together in just over a month?

Eddie sounded very confident in his reply. Yes, that’s not a problem. Most of the code is there; it’s just a matter of linking it up. Then we’ll be on the road again.

I wished that I shared his confidence. Somehow I had a very bad feeling about the whole business.

Is there anything else I need to know? I asked.

No, I think that covers it for the moment. I guess I’d better let you get back to bed.

Thanks, I said. And then I had an afterthought. Has the Houston office been kept informed of all this?

Yes. Bernie has been briefing them.

Okay, I said. Get some sleep, Eddie. I’m sure you need it.

CHAPTER 2

There were no more telephone calls that night, and I slept through until my alarm went off at 6.45 a.m. All things considered I didn’t feel too bad, in view of the interruptions during the night. Part of that, I think, was the effect of being in Seattle. I enjoy living in Houston, mostly because of the friends I have there, as well as Mary and the