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Thursday, September 4, 2008 |
Adept Technology Inc., a provider of intelligent automation software for motion and vision-guided robotics systems and services, announced yesterday that John Dulchinos has been named chief executive officer to succeed Robert Bucher, who has been named executive chairman of the board of directors. Mr. Dulchinos remains president of Adept and has also been elected to serve as a member of the company's board. Michael Kelly, Adept's current chairman of the board, will continue to serve on the Board in the position of lead independent director.
From the press release:
Mr. Dulchinos joined Adept Technology in 1987, just four years after the company was founded. He has made unparalleled contributions during his tenure, holding several senior management positions of increasing responsibility including vice president of global sales and marketing, vice president of robotics, vice president of worldwide sales, vice president of North American Sales and most recently, president and chief operating officer.
"John was the clear choice of all of us on the board of directors to lead Adept as it enters its next phase of growth," said Robert Bucher. "I am confident that Adept is in the hands of a highly capable visionary leader and that the company is well positioned for a very bright future. John's strong combination of business, sales and technical skills have contributed greatly to the successful turnaround we've made in the past 5 years. We have worked closely during that period together with an excellent team to build a company where we are gaining traction in growing markets with innovative, patented products. We have come far but I believe the best is yet to come," he continued.
Mr. Dulchinos stated, "This is a very exciting period for Adept and I'm looking forward to my expanded role. We have an extremely talented team in place and we've worked hard to position ourselves for the growth opportunities facing us today."
Note carefully the company's self description. It's not a robot and vision company, but a software company. It has gone through some painful years leading to pretty complete management turnover as the robotic industry has matured and its normal customers have experienced severe downturn. It did report FY 2008 revenues up 25 percent to $60.8 million and EPS growing to $0.44 per share from a loss in 2007.
3:56:00 PM 
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Just downloaded the latest conference agenda for next week's IPS conference and saw there was a major change. I booked my flights to arrive before the "plenary" session at 1 pm on Monday. Now I see they have changed the agenda and there is one plenary at 8 am (oops, I'll miss that one) and another at 3:30 (I'll be there for that one). This is the latest thing in conferences--fly in on Sunday for an 8 am Monday keynote. Cuts into church and men's soccer league activities. Anyway, see you all Monday afternoon.
3:48:17 PM
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Not that I wish to encourage this behaviour, but today was off-the-wall PR day. First I receive a little box UPS. Inside was a note paper saying the box contained an announcement about how Sealed Air provided the materials to ship a 77 million year old mummified dinosaur. The press release was on a USB stick (that lit up to reveal a dinosaur picture when plugged into the computer) inside a plastic egg coated to look like a fossil.
The the US Mail guy brings a big envelop from Padilla Speer Beardsley, the PR agency for Rockwell. Inside, a big red hand with a finger raised--no not the one you all figure I deserve from them ;-) It's the "number 1" as in Rockwell Automations "power of 1" integrated architecture.
OK, some days you just need that kind of break.
3:44:00 PM
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Saw this article in Computerworld about ISO/IEC standards making. The problem involves Microsoft's response to "open standards" by proposing its own OpenXML standard. Some countries are very anti-Microsoft. Could this happen in automation? Probably not since we're so small. On the other hand, we have lots of vendor-proposed standards just like this one. Here's the first couple of paragraphs:
Countries whose appeals were dismissed regarding ISO and the IEC's approval of Microsoft Corp.'s
Open XML as an international standard are questioning the judgment and
relevance of those two international standards bodies and the standards
they approve. In a statement made at the Congresso Internacional Sociedade e Governo Electronico (CONSEGI) 2008
conference, representatives from several countries, including Brazil,
South Africa and Venezuela -- three of the four countries that appealed
an April 1 vote to approve Open XML as a standard -- said they are "no
longer confident" in the ability of both the international standards
group ISO and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) to be vendor-neutral and open when it comes to setting technology standards.
6:57:23 AM
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© Copyright 2008 Gary Mintchell.
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