There Is No Copilot
Markman's resume shows him to be a very smart engineer. He led the major redirection that turned GMGC from the Magic Cap PDA platform to the MagicTalk VUI platform. This was a huge change even though both were strongly organized around personal messaging.
I suspect that he is an admirable (old) guy in many ways. It is too bad that he is only a Wosniak, and not a Jobs. If they only could get a real marketing whiz to be COO, I think Markman's hard work of the past few years could pay off. But it is a longer shot each day as competitors are really storming the market. The pace seems like the Internet in 1996, although of course the VUI phenomenon is not as important.
In spite of Markman's many shortcomings as CEO, there is no one at GMGC who can speak for the company other than Markman. Although this is his doing too, it is the truth. Why else at this critical juncture would you have your new SVP of Sales with only a few weeks at GMGC speak at the CC? Why are all but one of the executive committee members women in an industry dominated by men?
Markman is very much a part of all of the problems, and Markman will be part of a successful solution if one is found. No top talent is going to be attracted to the CEO slot at a company that is already often referred to (together with others like GO and 3DO) as a classic Silicon Valley failure.
In times like these the board should step in. Unfortunately, the Board is very weak. Among other things none of them has any startup success and none has any large financial investment in GMGC.
I do not believe that GM will crack the whip either. I am sure that Virtual Advisor is well engineered, but Virtual Advisor is a small part of Onstar. GM then can do without GMGC more easily than GMGC can do without Markman.
The plane that many were flying high on in February and March has only one pilot. If you see him leaving (and he might, sounds very tired to me), better strap on your chute because there is no one else. None of the flight attendants can land this baby.
Very disappointed in the lack of success with telcos and believing Onstar to be GM's Edsel (beats walking as far as GMGC is concerned), I am hanging on to a small part of my GMGC shares until the jury is in on IBM.
Oh yeah, I am two years older than Markman and my business partner of fifteen years is a woman. |
