Creditors !

re: "Quest and NetPro did compete in some areas it was always a very friendly competition – each company had areas of superiority and both have superior people. "

Nice try on the post acquisition spin, but if you actually talked to a rank-and-file NetPro or Quest person out in the field:

(A) they competed in all areas, basically 95% of NetPro's revenue overlaps with Quest; and (B) the competition was not at all friendly, it was very hard hitting, with Quest sliming NetPro as a small vendor about to go out of business, etc.

Isn't it time someone filled your shoes to provide objective reporting on IdM ? Wake up NetworkWorld and place some new talent that doesn't pander to the silver-haired cronies. Dave has truly lost his sense of perspective whilst dragging his suitcase around the world on someone's expense account. There's just nothing new anymore.

I feel the same way the others who posted comments previously. Dave seems to favor vendors who come up with "interesting" but useless products. It is high time for him to talk about the technology and solutions that might work.

As one of the prior commenters noted, there may be one or two products that don't overlap (e.g. MissionControl), but the reality is that the vast majority of NetPro's revenue generated products competed very fiercely with Quest's products. And that the competition was quite nasty, with both sides slinging mud very hard and aggressively (including very aggressive discounting to the benefit of customers) - there was no love lost between the 2 sides.

But one thing that was not mentioned in David's comments are the following facts:
(a) over 75 NetPro folks got whacked within 24 business hours of the acquisition -- maybe not the PR mavens that brief David, but rank and file personnel -- so not sure if those people are toasting this acquisition;
(b) many customers are not buying either products until October 15th until they see which products "win", so customers are in a holding pattern and trying to wait until the dust settles and if their NetPro or Quest product is going to be whacked (sure they may get a free license of the other one, but what about cost of re-deploying on each Windows system, training, etc.); and
(c) customers are now starting to realize that with the removal of NetPro (and ScriptLogic and Aelita etc.) that there is now no real competition in the market for Windows management; there is now just one vendor who dominates this market. Without competition = no motivation to innovate by the sole vendor, just squeeze more maintenance out of the customer, less aggressive discounting, etc.

So the big news is that this acquisition is not necessarily good news for customers; healthy competition is actually a good thing for a market (and customers!).

So now we must wait until Microsoft slowly enters this market with ILM while Quest squeeze every maintenance dollars out of their customers ...

So you pundits have been lauding the annual NetPro gathering as the best event of the year for Microsoft centric technologists, largely I suspect because it has been a relatively unbiased event and given little room for barefaced product marketing.
Microsoft has participated with expert speakers and insights into Identity and Access product roadmaps alongside leading industry technologists giving practical insights for those of us less able. Will they continue to do so in view of the rather outspoken opinions of Jackson Shaw about his former prodigy, ILM ?
Will Jackson be able to resist the temptation of selling himself, his products and his brand in the same way Gil Kirkpatrick has been able to do ?
Will we get explanations about the, for example, war on password management tools that killed the market because of Quest's bundled giveaways. How will he re-position himself now he has monopolized the market in Windows management tools ? I, for one, hope he adopts a commercial approach to pricing so other vendors can get a look in.
Can't help but think that megalomania and greed is the driver for sinking NetPro because I see no obvious solutions emerging from Quest for Identity and Access that will strengthen Quest's value in anything but Active Directory monitoring and the already merged Vintela product.

friendly competition, is that why the fired everyone that had worked at Quest prior to joining NetPro? and then killed all the products. can you say monopoly?