TOM KEMP'S CENTRIFY BLOG

Offtopic: Windows Gurus … or extras in “Men in Tights”?

Monday, October 8, 2007

Doug Barney and the folks at Redmond Magazine have been great to work with over the years, not only with my current venture, Centrify, but also with the prior company that I co-founded, NetIQ. Last August in a feature spread on "Working with Microsoft" they were kind enough to run a sidebar article on Centrify and my approach to working with Microsoft entitled Two-Time Winner." It is always great to see our ability to successfully execute a partner relationship with Microsoft recognized in a public forum.

Fast forward a year or so, and I am depicted as one of the industry's "Windows Gurus" on the cover (shown on the right) of the October 2007 issue of Redmond Magazine. I am the guy to the right of the laughing man whose hands are over the crystal ball.

I thought their Stonehenge / Lord of the Rings-type motif on the cover was pretty cool. I quickly envisioned the crystal ball actually being a Palantir-like object and myself as something like an extra hanging out in Rivendell. But that bubble was quickly burst as the jokes from the team here at Centrify started immediately flowing in, and pretty soon I was reduced to an extra in Mel Brooks' "Robin Hood - Men in Tights," singing the title song. Oh well, at least my kids thought I looked cool.