waveduke, I'm with you on this. I think it's way too premature for folks to be judging Gary Patton. From personal experience I've learned that preconceptions - stereotypical and otherwise - that I sometimes had about people were turned upside down once I actually met or spoke with them over the phone.
The main reason I believe Patton was hired is to manage the new corporate system that Solms has put in place - greater efficiency, productivity and accountability. Solms can't effectively continue wearing the COO and CEO hats as the company grows. His biggest strengths going forward will be in deploying his leadership skills for all facets of the company.
I also don't expect Patton to be a gatekeeper for innovative ideas and product development as that is an area in which Solms has thus far shown his own good aptitude and interest. The main reason I don't expect Patton to have much influence in this area is because he has very little background in IT, per the press release, and we know from one of his quotations that he evidently doesn't believe one should stray into subjects with which they're not familiar.
So aside from maybe opening more doors into DoD, as well as providing DoD with more comfort doing business with Wave, I see Patton strictly as an operations guy. And we'll eventually know how good of an operations guy he is or isn't, but not now.
AI
