CommVault CEO Says Company Not Interested in Being Acquired

Rumors abound that Dell is poised to acquire a software company, most likely of the enterprise variety.

CommVault Systems, a Dell partner and data-management software firm that had been mentioned as a Dell acquisition candidate, apparently will not be subject to a takeover.

In a recent interview with Bloomberg, CommVault CEO Robert Hammer said the following:

“We can create more shareholder value over time than having someone acquire us. We are not interested in being acquired.”

Technically, of course, not having interest in being acquired is not the same as being adamantly and unalterably opposed to being acquired. By playing hard to get, CommVault might make itself more attractive to a prospective buyer.

Anything is possible, but Hammer seems to be preparing shareholders and the market for a long-term growth story predicated on CommVault’s ongoing independence.

Glassdoor Compiles List of Best and Worst Technology Employers

Glassdoor.com, the online career and workplace community, has polled employees across America and compiled its second annual list of the best and worst companies for which to work.

Om Malik has listed the highest-rated and lowest-rated technology companies. Juniper Networks ranks at the top among technology employers, though technically it finishes in a dead heat with National Instruments, Google, and NetApp. Apple, Qualcomm, Novell, Adobe, EMC, and Rackspace round out the top ten.

Although Adobe finishes in the top ten, it slides down the charts from last year.

At 91 percent, Apple’s Steve Jobs captures the top employee-approval rating of tech CEOs. Eric Schmidt of Goole ranks second among technology CEOs in employee approval, with James Truchard of National Instruments taking the bronze medal.

The lowest-rated technology company for which to work? That dubious honor goes to Xilinx. Affiliated Computer Services noses out Hewlett-Packard for second.

HP CEO Mark Hurd might have some friends on Wall Street, but he’s not winning friends and influencing people within his own company, where he earns a CEO approval rating of 22 percent. It might be time for him to hire an executive “food taster” for those boardroom lunches.

Rounding out technology’s bottom ten are Avaya, Real, NVIDIA, Infosys, Nortel Networks, Perot Systems, and Dell. Considering that Dell just acquired Perot Systems, it probably won’t have undue difficulty meeting the workplace expectations of post-integration Perot personnel.

All things considered, it’s surprising that Nortel didn’t fare worse than it did. After all, the company went from bad to worse — and then to utter dissolution — this year.

Former Nortel CEO Mike Zafirovski received an approval rating of just 2 percent, far worse than any other corporate kingpin running the lowest-rated companies. Even then, one wonders whether he had relatives working at the company to provide even that modest degree of approbation.

Lurid Bribery Case Doesn’t Reflect Poorly on Gartner

It’s a headline nobody at Gartner wants to see. Thankfully, the underlying story isn’t nearly as distressing.

The well-known consultancy and IT market-research concern probably is mortified that a news story posted on the Network World website — and covered elsewhere, too — offers the lurid headline, “Former Gartner manager gets jail for accepting bribes.” If you’re a company in Gartner’s business, you don’t ever want your name to appear in the same sentence as the words “jail” and “bribes.”

What’s important to note, however, is that the manager in question wasn’t involved in consulting or research activities. Instead, he was responsible for the purchase of multimedia services and equipment.

Moreover, an earlier press release from the United States Attorney Southern District of New York, makes clear that Gartner was a victim of the bribery scheme. It’s an unseemly and unfortunate tale, replete with attention-grabbing headlines, but it doesn’t and shouldn’t reflect negatively on Gartner’s credibility and repute as a purveyor of advisory services and market research.