SM: Let’s start the conversation with your story? Where did you grow up, where do you come from? BH: I grew up in New Rochelle New York, which is right outside of New York City. I went to grammar school there and then went off to the University of Massachusetts, Amherst for my BA degree.
SM: This has been a very interesting discussion. Anything else you would like to add before we conclude, especially about your personal situation at present? EB: On a personal level, things have worked out pretty well in the sense that I believe in ten year cycles – at least for me. I think, you can
SM: What is Elevation’s investment thesis regarding positioning? Is it still a prosumer play? EB: The Elevation thesis is pretty simple. It basically says that smartphone market is at its very infancy, and the arrival of the iPhone is expanding the opportunity, making it more real to more people. It is very clear that it
Palm’s Elevation Partners deal is a smart move to give the cmpany its best shot at a turnaround. Jonathan Rubinstein joins as Executive Chairman, as part of the deal, and the transition is due to happen soon. SM: What about the CEO though? EB: What was critical was to be able to add this talent
SM: So services as a key strategic initiative you think is still in beta! EB: Well, this was a core opportunity. In the Spring of 2005, at an annual strategy board meeting, it was decided that a key goal for the company would be in the subscription area. We had not been able to execute
SM: What kinds of problems have you identified as big open problems you are going to tackle in the labs? TL: We are always working on making the service faster, scalable and more reliable. We have a team of folks that are looking for the 1 in 10,000 to the 1 in 100,000 “nasty thing”
SM: One of the concerns you must be facing now is how big can the CDN business be, and how fast can it grow? I am sure your investors like to see diversification as it is both risk and business diversification. Application acceleration provides that diversification, and I like it. TL: We consider it to
SM: How do you provide fast, reliable service globally? What is the secret there? TL: There are a bunch of things we do for that. In the old adage, having our servers near the end users rewards them. We sit on top of and find better routes on the Internet. We don’t change the protocol,