I used to work for BEA back in 1998-1999 when they had an engineering office in Plano, TX for Tuxedo adapters and mainframe products (Connect TCP and Connect SNA). I left in 1999 and the office closed in 2001/2002 as WebLogic took over BEA. I miss BEA.

While I was there, I meet all of them, Bill Coleman and Alfred Chuang on one occasion and Ed Scott on another.

I liked Mark Carges the best. Mark is still there in a CTO role, and I think he's probably smarter technically than any software executive I've met.

I've also met Kraig Brockschmidt who architected COM, back in the day, and I still have his COM book signed, but it's probably not worth much now.

I've also traded email with Robert Lewis and Maggie Biggs, but I haven't kept up with what they're doing, really. I'm bad about keeping up contacts, but trying to get better.

I had a chance to see a "Get Motivated!" conference today with Colin Powell, Zig Ziglar, Goldie Hahn, Steve Forbes, Avery Johnson, and someone else I can't remember, but after checking the Internet, I found out it was for some really expensive sales training. And I would have to share the experience with 30,000 other people. Not exactly my idea of a fun time. And I've already met Zig Ziglar in person anyway.

Enjoy your meeting with Dennis, and I hope it goes well. Brilliant minds tend to "collaborate" as I always say.

Glen Austin