From the CEO's Desk

It’s that time of year again. What this really means to you depends on your location and your culture.  It might be the middle of summer, a time to bring gifts, a time to relax a bit while your systems are locked down, or a time supporting record high end-of-year transaction volumes.

Speaking of systems, this year is the 35th anniversary of the first Tandem T16 computer, later called the NonStop I.  Its 96 kilobytes of main memory and 700 KIPS (thousand instructions per second) bit-slice processor were as impressive then as the current generation NonStop Blade Servers are now, with 48 gigabytes of main memory, 18 megabytes of level 3 cache and 1.66 GHz dual-core Itanium® 9100 series processors.

The first NonStop systems were designed with a few basic principles: modularity, fault tolerance, fail-fast of individual components, and online maintenance.  In 1983 XYPRO was formed to develop products for this excitin’ new machine (as Tandem’s founder, Jimmy Treybig, would say) and in 1984 we were named as one of the original Tandem Alliance members.  The photo shows Jimmy with XYPRO’s founder, Dale Blommendahl, at an ITUG Summit some 20 years ago.

Since then, neither company has rested on its laurels, both expanding worldwide and supporting some of the most mission critical applications at some of the world’s largest and most prestigious organizations.

While XYPRO’s headquarters is in sunny southern California, our employees are as diverse as our customers.  At last count, people from 13 different countries work here.  But no matter where we are from or what we believe, the holiday season is the time of year when many of us take some time off to spend with our families, recharge our batteries and ring in the new year.  Even so, we will have enough people on hand to support you 24x7 just as we do the rest of the year.  Because even when our staff or your staff are on holiday, we know that your NonStop servers are still working around the clock.

Along with work, Decembers at XYPRO include a contest.  Each person decorates their office door to reflect how they celebrate.  Historically, the halls have been decked with doors made to look like a gingerbread house, a fireplace, a New Year celebration in India, and an ice skating scene.  Over the years, we’ve seen themes executed with hand-made dreidels, a brightly lit cactus, snow babies, and even Christmas stockings arranged to represent ‘SOX Compliance’.  And Scott Uroff, our Chief XYGATE Engineer, is also known for decorating our NonStop systems. 

In addition to an annual holiday lunch and gift exchange, we traditionally take time to reflect on the rewards we receive throughout the year, from our co-workers as well as our valued customers.  And as much as I would love to unwrap some of our biggest customers to show them off, I’m afraid those packages will have to remain sealed. Companies whose products are used to protect some of the most important secrets in the world sometimes need to stay under the radar.  What I can tell you is that XYGATE users are all in very good company, amongst a customer base of international leaders in government and private industry.

If you want to rub shoulders with these leaders, you don’t need an invitation. Nor do you need to be cleared by the Secret Service.  Simply attend one of the dozens of TUG or Connect meetings around the world and you can take advantage of the personal interaction that we love so much.

For example, XYPRO was present at the Connect Germany / GTUG IT Symposium in Darmstadt, celebrating the 35th Anniversary of NonStop and at the prestigious Institute of Directors premises in Pall Mall, London for the BITUG Big SIG meeting.  If you were at either event, you would have seen us talking to some of the biggest names in Europe. Some of each event’s highlights are captured at http://blog.xypro.com/.

But we don’t want to forget other parts of the world.  Recently, XYPRO has been at meetings in the United States, such as SCTUG in California, DUST in Arizona, and SunTUG in Florida.  We also paid a visit to our neighbors to the north at CTUG in Toronto.  It’s not too early to think about booking travel to SATUG so that you can rub shoulders with the leading companies in South Africa – who also happen to be our customers!

I would like to close this message with a request.  We wonder what family or work traditions you find meaningful and what you like to do when you take time off of work.  We would love to hear from you in the comments section.  Take as much space as you like to let us know about what’s special to you this time of year.

Sheila Johnson