What's Up With Ingres?
his exit from Ingres blog item
Dargo was senior vice president of strategy and CTO for the open-source database company spun out of CA. He is sequeing into an advisory role, according to his post.
But there's more to it than that.
Disclosing uncomfortable information just before a long weekend is a classic PR ploy to hide bad newsor dampen its impact. Compaq was infamous for dropping bad earnings (or other) bombs late Fridays before long weekends. A Microsoft channel chief leaves? It posts the press release the Friday before Memorial Day.
When Dargo and a other Oracle vets joined Ingres over the past two years, there was a lot trash talk about Oracle and MySQL, et. al. being goners.
In late October, Dargo blogs "B@#$@t!" over Oracle's beat-Red Hat-at-its-own-support news. He's no shrinking violet.
Yet when he leaves barely four months later, there's nary an official peep. Even his company bio goes poof in the night. This near-silent exit smacks of the kind of subterfuge the Baltimore Colts used when they snuck out of town in the dead of night.
It now seems that Burlingame, Calif.-based Ingres has something to hide. Dargo ain't the only refugee. Jim Finn, the corp comms guyalso an Oracle vet: Gone. Evan Quinn, the former Oracle analyst relations (AR) person who became Ingres AR guy? Gonzo. The latter two went to Avaya.
These exits have prompted some--including database competitors--to wonder aloud if Ingres is having trouble with funding. They remember that trash talk.
An Ingres spokeswoman said there are no other top-level departures to speak of, but such comings and goings are business as usual.
"As with any start up, people come and go. Dave's a bit different as he is transitioning back into an advisory role and will continue to work with Ingres. Thus his blog is what is blog is," she said via e-mail.
She points to Ingres CFO's blog as proof that the company is doing great. The private company discloses no numbers. One thing to remember: Burying pertinent business information in blog posts may fool some people. But it also makes others more curious than if the disclosure was made on the up-and-up.