Local tech firm Simdesk ceased operations last week states a post on their website:
To all of our valued Simdesk Customers and Partners,
It has been our pleasure to serve you over the past eight years, providing innovative online and mobile messaging and collaboration solutions. We thank you for your support and patronage, regrettably as of May 1, 2008 we are ceasing operations and will no longer be providing or supporting our services.You can contact us at simdesk@live.com
Sincerely,
Simdesk Management and Team
Simdesk provided an online desktop application with a specific contract with the City of Houston, a contract that was somewhat controversial. Accoridng to my discussions with management, the company was working to secure a relationship with HP, which never seeemed to materialize into something worthwhile.
Although this is a blow to the tech scene in Houston, my experience tells me that we may see startups offshoot from former developers and product managers of the company. We’ll keep our eyes open.
Being a recently unemployeed Simdesk employee I can say we all saw this coming, perhaps now as soon as it did, but the truth is Simdesk was a dieing a slow death. Many of our star developers departed for greener pastured in the past year, leaving only the lifers who were merely looking for a pay check, not to innovate.
Did company sell or transfer any assets, file for protection? My mother was one of the original investors and we really need some answers as to the status now, or who we could talk to.
The company is still in operation. They laid off all but 15 people last month and still occupy the same address. They have renamed the company to Mezeo Software and are repackaging their middleware products. I’m not sure why the company wants to appear “Out of Business”. They owe millions of dollars and are not trying to dodge payments (which is why most companies make a move like this). You can see the new webpage at http://www.mezeosoftware.com. Check the “whois” registry and you’ll see their address and the name John Eastman as the registrant, a long time and current employee of the company.
I am former employee as well, but was laid off in the 4th round of layoffs in September of 2006 with about 40 other people. This layoff was no surprise to any of us.
SimDesk was heavily financed, to the tune of some $140+ million dollars from private investors. The product never fully functioned properly or stably despite some valiant attempts to make it do so. Boy, the stories I could tell.
Perhaps in its new incarnation it will rise from the dust. Clear, knowledgable leadership was lacking - though the type A’s there would dispute that assertion. Maybe they learned some lessons they can apply this time around.
At least the web site looks flashy and that just may be enough.
It’s too bad the company’s idea of digital inclusion didn’t pan out. Easy to blame management for the failure but even people like Nicholas Negroponte (OLPC) learned the same lessons 2 years later. I suppose somebody has to take the blame.
The fact that the company made Microsoft’s 10-K for three years and survived as long as it did says something. Kudos to Simdesk for trying, and good luck to everyone who worked hard and gave it their best. (And it will be interesting to see what this new thing turns out to be).
PS The product worked just fine. Gary M. was known as a whiner when he was at Simdesk too.
@anothersimdeskex
The software never worked the way it was supposed to. I should know. I QAed about 20+ versions for over 3 years. It was all smoke and mirrors. I don’t know what kind of bull mgt. fed you but SimDesk died in 2004. Broken promises and repeat failures is what SimDesk’s trademark should be.
To Gary M.’s defense, we wasn’t a whiner, he was stating the obvious. I have nothing but respect for him. Too bad mgt didn’t listen to him more often.
In case anyone is interested, thedailywtf.com tells the story of this company in which the name has been thinly veiled as “Virtudyne”.
I loved all of you guys. Shouts to you all! Greg K., you were fun if a little misanthropic. Bobby, loved talking with you, you were the soul. Gary B. sorry for bringing you into another failing company, you totally rock. Justin, you were a fun lovin spirit, I hope you have a dozen kids already. Blondin, you fool, we know it was you who smoked my machine. Waathiq, I liked you, despite what you thought I thought about you, I wish you success. Eric, I lied on the disguised personality test, I’ve been studying NLP since I was 14. To the other Dave M., stop hitting on my wife.
Gary McFeely, we agree on politics, but you burned SimDesk when you soured the wholesale dial deal, you didn’t know what you were talking about. Wolbrecht, you had your chance in the Indian ocean, but blew it. Server team, you should have smoked far less marijuana. Sasha, I apologize for my foolish American comrades.
I worked at Simdesk for only two months. Don’t know what I was thinking when I accepted the offer from Simdesk and left big, well-known Fortune 500 company (top 20) where I was paid six digit salary and had 4 weeks vacation. I was offered somewhat more at Simdesk, but not much. Not worth the hassle of changing jobs anyway. I guess i was just literally bored out of my mind and my old job. It happens sometimes. That’s the only explanation I can think of. Anyhow, as soon as I started at Simdesk, I realized what I stepped into. The company was obviously rotting away while still alive,well, sort of alive. When CEO left the company for another job “for family reasons” (Huh?) during my first month there, - that was the writing on the wall. Rats leaving the sinking ship. That was my first experience with a startup and hope the last. I had no moral or any other investment in the company at the time, having been there for less than 2 months. Therefore I accepted another offer that, as it came to be, was made just in time. Within one month after my voluntary termination of employment with Simdesk, the company basically ceased to exist. RIP. I am only sorry for the guys that were hired along with me in this “last gasp” spree of hiring. I guess that was the last batch of hiring of “the new talents” that Simdesk management was hoping to salvage that sinking ship with. They were all let go from what I heard.
LOL-that place is gone man. Like 1000s of startups, they didnt make it. Let it go guys…just let it go.
I really dont think anyone really took that freak seriously
i worked there too for a couple years. i felt the people tried, people worked hard, management made changes.
but hey this is tech startup life, you get competitions titans or nimbles ones, you work on the market in the end if you dont win big you’re out…there’s no magic.
Bobby was not the soul of Simdesk(did it have a soul?), if anything, he was the village idiot. When I first came on he was talking about how he single handedly wrote a new Internet protocol in VB6. LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL. There was a guy Eric Eaton that pursued every girl in the office. Poor guy, I think some of the weaker ones felt sorry for him.
I swear to God it was like working at The Office.. the characters
Michael Scott - Gary Allison
Pam Beesly - Stacy (Michael gets Pam in a couple of episodes)
Dwight Schrute - Eric Eaton
Jim Halpert - Justin York
Jan Levinson - Raegan Hill (Michael gets Jan in a couple of episodes)
Andy Bernard - David Crowley
Toby Flenderson - A composite of HR
Angela Martin - Milena (Michael gets Angela in a couple of episodes)
What happened to all of the customers?
You know, any company that hires Charles Davis is bound for failure. Seriously, that man is an energy sucking nightmare to work with. And you should see how he treats his direct reports. He seems to be able to fools upper management with his good ole boy act, but ultimately he’s a high school football player in a suit. Not even a quarterback. More like a loose end - you know, just stays out of the way and tries his best to not get hurt.
All of this would almost be OK if he was smart enough to do his damn job.
Looks like a Ray Davis is at BRS Labs now (http://brslabs.com/team.php), Their site boasts the following about him:
In 2000, when the Dot-coms of the era were struggling to deliver a cost effective operating system for the internet, Mr. Davis invented the only viable method to deliver Computer Applications online. With the technology built and patented, Simdesk Technologies was able to deliver Office Applications over the internet at a staggering 20,000,000 users per server. A benchmark which has never been matched. After licensing the company’s product to the Cities of Houston and Chicago, management of Simdesk was turned over to the Waters Group of Houston. The company has now been renamed to Mezeo Software and is positioning its new line of products for emerging corporate markets.
This was a failed company for a long time, from the top. All of its workers were very intelligent and the software appeared to work numerous times. The funny thing about SimDesk was that they adopted this Tech/ESOP philosophy of the ’90s where everyone could have ownership and a profit motive. Still a good theory. However, they probably shouldn’t have paid their top people as much as they did; that lessens the incentive if they are already making Hundreds of Thousands of $$/year. I can tell you that two secretaries were paid $90K/yr & $60K/yr respectively for surfing the internet all day and the top three’s salaries averaged, $25K/mo + expenses and a company Porsche…you do the math… TOO MUCH investment capital going to individuals instead of Marketing and R&D. How ironically typical. I can guarantee you those same people will bury their current “Start Up” …Before the Reign Stops!!
If any investors (Former Employees or Private) reading this are interested in a class action against the former Executives, please leave your blog here. I will check back in a month to see the results and make my determination then. They will be held accountable!!!
Folks, I am happy to continue to house this Simdesk love fest for everyone but ask that if you get personal with names of former employees and call them out that you at least have the decency to identify yourself. Otherwise, I will have to shut this thread down.
The Landlord.