ACCESS Systems Americas Reviews

Pros

- very smart, dedicated people
- incredibly strong media relations shop
- open about all things financial
- senior management is open to criticism and new approaches
- clients respect all team members

Cons

- employee review process takes too long
- senior management is often too focused on process
- the same people are tapped for new business

Advice to Senior Management

- focus on your employees so they feel recognized
- spread the experience of new business proposals, pitches and follow-up

Pros

There are a lot of good people who try really hard at the individual contributor and mid-management levels. The pay is solid and the benefits are pretty good.

Cons

The most senior management (in Japan) are nothing but an obstacle. They have no business in Silicon Valley. They are unimaginative, cost-obsessed, and incredibly reactionary. They respond to major senior management failures by laying off low level workers and keeping the people who made the dumb decisions. I think if the shareholders knew how terribly the place is run, and how low morale is, they would be angry.

Advice to Senior Management

If you are going to be a product company (and successfully transition from a service company), you must do product development and focus on quality and innovation. Don't be timid. Don't insist on a level of ROI that no one else in the industry enjoys, especially before you develop any product at all.

The management has to love what they are creating, and right now, they don't. Management takes an adversarial role, as if they were investors. It is bizarre. If you can't understand the product, you can't lead its development. Find a new product or retire, but don't be an adversary to your own employees.

Pros

Flexiable time, and causal working environement.

Cons

Over-sea office management can do a better job.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to the customers needs and make a quick adoption.

Pros

I can't think about things I like that I could not find elsewhere, or specific ones making ACCESS a special place to be. The HR department is pretty good in providing benefits to the employees.

Cons

The lack of vision and the willingness to take some risks in order to succeed. The Japanese management style have put ACCESS, as a global company, in a difficult position.

Advice to Senior Management

Definitely need a strategy and to take risks.

Pros

At Access (mobile OS part) depending upon your team, you can get some good experience in low level LINUX based development. May also get a chance to work with some great techies in the field (though many have left). Team at IPInfusion is great in all aspects.

Cons

Inconsistent, vague and at times arbitrary/random approach from middle management. Top management in Japan is excellent though. Not much of personal or professional growth in most teams.

Advice to Senior Management

Higher management in Japan should force more transparency in middle management roles and decisions. And development teams should either be beefed up in strength/technical capabilities or they will become useless in comparison to China teams.

Pros

Good work environment
High visibility
Opportunities for travel
Good salary compensation
performance reviews every 6 months
good work life balance

Cons

Not a very large company; does not follow lot of processes; marketing team is good but needs to be even more aggressive

Advice to Senior Management

Can try to implement more processes that are followed by other big companies out there; Hire more people in sales and marketing

Pros

you get to work on exciting technology

Cons

not a lot of buyers

Advice to Senior Management

need more success in sales

Pros

People, Work atmosphere, Benefits were great

Cons

Small company, competitive market, lack of brand strength, competitors have a better solution

Advice to Senior Management

None

Pros

The ACCESS folks in Sunnyvale are the best team I've ever worked with - they're smart, hard working, and friendly. The programming is really interesting, and U.S. management lets us do our jobs without getting in the way.

ACCESS has offices and customers all over the world. It's great if you like to travel or work with people from other countries. And the folks at the non-U.S. offices are mostly pretty cool.

They're open to telecommuting, the health plan and bonus plan and other benefits are good, there's lots of free food, and free lattes in the break room.

Turnover is pretty low, and the hiring process is very selective, so you work with top-notch people.

I feel lucky to work here. Headhunters call and I just laugh.

Cons

The code/build/test cycle is very, very slow - but that's the same with any embedded system programming.

The QA team needs some training: "doesn't work" is not a bug report.

Top management is Japanese and hates to lose face or deliver bad news. If you want to know how the company is really doing, ignore what they say in company meetings and read the investor reports from the web site.

Advice to Senior Management

You need to treat Americans like Americans, and we're not Japanese. Here are a few suggestions.

If the company lost money, admit it in the monthly company meeting. Usually, you just zip over that PowerPoint slide real fast and hope nobody notices - but when you do that, we do notice, and we remember 2007 when you laid off 40% of the company. So have some guts, tell the truth, and explain why we shouldn't start looking for another job. We'd respect you for it.

If you make American engineers work on too many dumb ideas that don't ship, they quit - especially in Silicon Valley, where top engineers can always find work. We've lost a lot of good people that way in the last few years. So when your customers have bad ideas, you need to learn to "just say no".

Many Americans don't just want a paycheck, we want to feel like the company we work for is going someplace. But it doesn't seem ACCESS has any goals, just knee-jerk reactions to customers. You need to tell us plainly where the ship is going, and show us that somebody is actually steering it that way.

Pros

Status and industry. Access purchased the company formerly known as Palmsource and I started working for Palmsource. That's a well known name working in a hot industry, (mobile devices).

Cons

Access doesn't have their story clear on what the company formerly known as Palmsource is doing. They're aiming for a linux based set of applications and development system for mobile devices, but don't yet have a well defined product, clear customers, nor a revenue stream. It's been some time, (years), since Palmsource/Access released a money making product.

Advice to Senior Management

Senior management needs to either define their product and then find a suitable market or define their market and use that to define their product.