William F. Zachmann

President, Canopus Research
Duxbury, Massachusetts
Phone: 1-781-934-9800
wfz@canopusresearch.com
Professional experience

1988 - Present:   Canopus Research, Duxbury, MA

President and Owner

  • Mr. Zachmann, through Canopus Research, provides market, industry and technology research, consulting,  and analysis on the information industry to IT vendors, users, and the financial community. Typical projects include review of business and product plans, competitive analyses, and strategic planning.
  • Mr. Zachmann is a frequent public speaker for client seminars (both in-house and for their customers), at computer and communications industry trade shows, and similar events.
  • Mr. Zachmann is also a well-known writer within the computer and communications industry. He was one of the four lead columnists for PC Magazine and columnist and contributing editor for PC Week from 1988 to 1992 and has written for numerous other industry publications. He is now a lead columnist and contributing editor for Redmond Developer News.

2000 - 2002:  META Group, Stamford, CT

Vice President, Server Infrastructure Strategies (SIS)

  • META Group offers IT research and consulting services to large enterprises, IT vendors, and the financial community
  • Mr. Zachmann's primary coverage areas included middleware, application servers, J2EE, Microsoft .NET, XML, SOAP, WSDL, UDDI, UML, infrastructure strategies, and Web services generally, but he routinely dealt with a wide range of IT technology, strategy, and management topics as well.
  • Mr. Zachmann also covered key industry vendors including IBM, Microsoft, Sun, Oracle, Intel, Dell, Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, Unisys, BEA, Borland, Sybase, and numerous others

1979 - 1988:  International Data Corporation, Framingham, MA

Senior Vice President, Corporate Research

  • IDC is one of the leading computer industry market research firms and is part of the International Data Group, which includes numerous IT industry publications. Mr. Zachmann started with IDC as Director of Research for the user programs, became Vice President, Research, responsible for all IDC research programs in 1982 and then Senior Vice President, Corporate Research in 1986.
  • Mr. Zachmann personally wrote numerous IDC research reports and was the author of the IDC Office of Technology Assessment Research Memorandum series from 1984 until he left IDC in 1988.
  • Mr. Zachmann was the lead speaker for IDC's annual Computer Industry Briefing Sessions, held annually in the United States, major countries in Europe, and the Pacific Rim
  • He typically began IDC's Briefing Sessions with a Technology Update talk and closed them with his 13 Predictions for the year ahead. He was consistently the highest rated speaker by attendees for every year he was on the program (1981-1988).
  • Mr. Zachmann was also a regular columnist and contributing editor for numerous IDG publications during this period, including Computerworld, Infoworld, and PC World .

1977 - 1979:  CallData Systems, Waltham, MA

Manager of Technical Support, Northeastern Region
  • Mr. Zachmann managed CallData Systems (then a subsidiary of Grumman Corporation) Northeast Region technical support group. CallData was a major service bureau providing programming and computing services to corporate customers on IBM 370 mainframe, CDC Cyber, DEC PDP-10 and GE-635 timesharing systems.
  • In addition to the ongoing technical support for time sharing and service bureau clients, Mr. Zachmann during this period managed development projects including a major maintenance and warrantee and inventory parts tracking system for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA).
  • Mr. Zachmann's development team specialized in providing rapid development of systems for customers by using data base management system (DBMS) software.

1976 - 1977:  Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

Coordinator of Personnel Information

  • Mr. Zachmann managed and analyzed the Harvard University personnel database.
  • Projects during this period included a major statistical analysis to assess the equity of compensation for minorities and women employees of the University.

1974 - 1976:  The Forum Corporation, Boston, MA

Director of Research

  • The Forum Corporation provides management development consulting for its clients and management and sales training for clients' employees. Mr. Zachmann developed and delivered management and sales training programs for industry.
  • Projects for which Mr. Zachmann had primary responsibility included the development and delivery of Forum's first management practices based training program for Prudential Insurance and development of and training for a planning, budgeting, and performance review program for the Washington Star Station Group.

1969 - 1974:  First National Bank of Boston, Boston, MA

Systems Research Officer

  • First National Bank of Boston was, at the time, the 16th largest bank in the United States.
  • Mr. Zachmann was responsible for Electronic Data Processing (EDP) Planning, Computer System Simulation, and Computer System Performance Evaluation for the bank's data center. This included hardware and software monitoring of the bank's systems, IS demand forecasting, and computer simulation of projects in development.
  • Mr. Zachmann was also the primary contact for all computer hardware and software vendor representatives calling on the Bank.
  • During this period, Mr. Zachmann  developed an extensive simulation model, built using IBM's GPSS (General Purpose System Simulator), of a major on-line system being developed for IBM mainframes at the bank, including a detailed models of the IBM S/370 computer hardware and OS/370 operating systems.

1967 - 1969:  Cambridge Computer Associates, Cambridge, MA

Programmer/Analyst

  • Worked on a variety of complex system development projects. These included a business budget and expense distribution reporting system written in COBOL for a local manufacturer, a business simulation game for the Harvard Business School written in FORTRAN, and portions of a CCA program product called Crosstabs written in 360 Assembly Language.
  • Worked 30-35 hours per week while attending Harvard Divinity School (see below)
Other
  • Listed in Who's Who in the World, Who's Who in America
  • Elected Member and Vice Chairman of the Duxbury, Massachusetts, Planning Board, 1995-2000
  • Black belt (yondan) Uechi Ryu/Shohei Ryu (Okinawan) Karate
  • Practitioner since 1971 and occasional teacher of Yang Style T'ai Chi Ch'uan (taijiquan)
  • Blues guitar/bass player with the Bad As The Blues Blues Band
  • Member, Harvard Club of Boston, Harvard Faculty Club
  • Life Member, Harley Owners Group (H.O.G.)
  • Microsoft MCSE and MCP+I Certified
Publications
  • Regular columnist for PC Magazine and PC Week (every issue) from 1989-1992; Windows World (Japan) 1992-98; Computerworld 1986-88, Infoworld 1987-88, OS/2 Professional 1992-94, MacUser 1988-89, Software News 1984-86, On Communications 1984-86, PC World Magazine 1987-88, CompuServe (online) 1994-99, CIO Magazine (1999-2001), and numerous other publications.
  • "A GPSS Model of a Complex On-Line Computer System, Symposium on the Simulation of Computer Systems" (ACM/SIGSIM), National Bureau of Standards, Gaithersberg, MD, 19-20 June 1973.
  • "Operating and Applications System Design Opportunities for Carrier Sense Multiple Access Bus Based Local Area Networks", Local Network and Distributed Systems Conference, Online Conferences Ltd., London, 1981.
  • "Keys to Application Development Productivity", American Management Association, 1981
  • Numerous IDC Research Reports and Bulletins (1979-1988) and META Group Research Deltas (2000-2002)
  • Mr. Zachmann has also published technical papers on various topic including computer systems simulation, networking architectures, and information systems design and development (detailed citations are available on request).
Education 1956-1960:  Collinwood High School, Cleveland Ohio

Graduated June, 1960

  • National Merit Scholar.  General Motors National Scholarship award recipient.  Boeing National Scholarship award winner (one of two in the United States).  SAT scores:  770 Math, 728 Verbal.
  • Avid reader of science fiction as a teenager.  Wanted to attend New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts to study mechanical engineering in the cooperative program with White Sands Rocket Test Center but was bullied into going to Harvard instead by his mother and a local volunteer representative of the Harvard Alumni Association (to both of whom he is now very grateful).
  • First 'computer' was a GENIAC kit purchased via a mail order ad in Scientific American, probably in 1957.  This proved to be an occasion  thoroughly to absorb Shannon's classic paper on switching circuits and to master binary arithmetic and at least the basics of symbolic logic.
  • First 'real' computer experience was in the very late 1950s with S.O.A.P.(Symbolic Operations Assembly Program) programming on an IBM 650 vacuum tube computer at Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland through friends who were undergraduate students there.

1960 - 1966:  Harvard College ‘64 Cambridge, MA

Bachelor of Arts, Social Relations
  • Began with major in Mathematics.  From there, went to English Literature,  Social Relations,  Far Eastern Languages (Chinese), and then Philosophy with intense work on Husserl, Heidegger, Wittgenstein and Nietzsche.  Finally returned to Social Relations.
  • Learned FORTRAN programming on IBM 7094 systems at Harvard Computing Center via extra-curricular non-credit courses in 1961.
  • Interrupted undergraduate education, leaving Harvard in January 1963 to teach karate full time.  Taught karate for Mattson Academy and for the Harvard Athletic Department.
  • Went to New York City in the spring of 1964, enrolled at the New School for Social Research there studying symbolic logic, philosophy (Dorian Cairns on 19th century European Philosophers; Kurt Fischer on Nietzsche), and psychology (Ernst Whitmont on Jung and Rudolph Arnheim on Art and Visual Expression).
  • Returned to Harvard in the fall of 1964 majoring in Philosophy, finally received A.B. degree from Harvard in Social Relations in 1966.
  • Social Relations included four disciplines:  Sociology, Social Psychology, Personality Theory, and Anthropology.
  • Mr. Zachmann studied personality theory with George Goethals, Robert A. White,  Henry Murray and others at Harvard; anthropology with J. B. Whiting; small group dynamics with Freed Bales and Richard Mann; and sociology with Talcott Parsons.  He was one of 13 students enrolled in the historic Social Relations 120 Small Group Dynamics session of 1961/62 along with folks like Foster Dunlop, National Lampoon editor and writer Christopher Cerf, Derrick Clauson, Hardy Blanchard and the rest.
  • Mr. Zachmann's studies also included considerable work in research design and statistical data analysis. These also involved computer programming and work projects throughout the early 1960s.

1966-1969:  Post-Graduate Study at Harvard Divinity School

  • Studies in religion and philosophy, but also enrolled for computer courses both at Harvard and via cross-registration at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, including M.I.T.'s seminal Electrical Engineering EE 6.251, "Systems Programming" course taught by John Donovan (1968/69).
  • During this period Mr. Zachmann was also advisor to the youth group at the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Brockton, MA (1966-67) and assistant to the minister at King's Chapel in Boston, Ma (1967-69).
  • One of three adult advisors to the New England Regional Organization of Liberal Religious Youth (LRY), a Unitarian-Universalist youth organization.
  • Also worked full time throughout this period (see above)
Areas of technical
expertise
  • Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 (extensive)
  • UNIX/Linux (more limited)
  • Visual Studio.NET Development
  • C/C++/C#
  • Visual Basic/VB.NET
  • Java/J2EE
  • HTML/XML
  • MS Office 2000/XP/2003 Applications
  • MS Exchange 2000/2003
  • MS FrontPage 2003
  • MS Small Business Server 2000/2003
  • MS SQL 7.0/2000
  • MS Internet Information Server (IIS)
  • Others
Vendor
certifications