Steadily declining, due to total lack of leadership
Pros
The company's core technology is easily capable of solving some of the biggest challenges today, and is being engineered and developed by some of the smartest data technology minds around. Most of Objectivity's engineers have a solid history solving real world problems, and building large scale government and enterprise systems - which is a potential advantage in a market becoming more saturated with vendors that have more innovative technologies but less real-world experience than most of the technical people who work at Objectivity.
Cons
The favorable reviews here are clearly posted by the CEO himself or one of his few remaining “yes” people. The CEO is the person most directly responsible for Objectivity’s current failures and steady decline, and he’s also the only person in the entire company who says “customer wins”. Note that phrase is used twice in the top 5-star review. I worked at the company, reporting directly to the CEO, for several years. No one likes or approves of him, except for the new people hired to replace someone he fired for actually doing their job the way it should be done. It usually takes about one day for them to realize something’s not quite right there. The CEO creates a toxic work environment where the only employees who keep their jobs are those who never disagree with him, and who do whatever it takes to achieve his unreasonable expectations - even if it means making the product worse or forcing a potential customer to walk away. At Objectivity, if you’re the lead engineer or sales person, and you tell the CEO something will take 2 months to finish or close, he will demand you do it in 1 month, and then starts criticizing and threatening everyone at about the 2 week mark. At that point, most people have only two choices: (A.) Compromise quality or throw out the entire purpose of whatever you were working on just to make the boss happy, OR (B.) take a chance of getting fired by telling him what he needs to know. Most people choose “A” because those who dare choose “B” are eventually fired - without exception. In fact, the CEO has spent most of the last decade trying to solve all the company's problem in one or two weeks. Literally. This is why, after more than 20 years, the product has no comprehensive administrative tools, difficulty backing up mission critical data, hasn't resolved some serious bugs that numerous sales prospects have encountered during their evaluations (and which caused them to choose another vendor), and is the reason why the company has almost no meaningful strategic partnerships with other complimentary technologies and companies with an established presence in enterprise and gov’t. I could also cite numerous examples of people who had worked at the company for 5 to 8 years with no issue, but who were suddenly either fired or forced to quit within months of being promoted up to the executive team or a key leadership role. Why? Because the CEO never lets a good deed, a good idea, or any real long term plan or strategy go unpunished. As soon as he promotes someone into a position where they have to tell him what he NEEDS to know, he begins to attack and undermine them. Objectivity also recently reported some positive financials (11/2013). Given the company’s (low) revenues, it’s not difficult to show net increases with just one or two new deals. But also, two weeks prior to this announcement, Objectivity laid off a large number of employees. They were told that revenues were declining and the bank account was getting low. How much time remains is anyone’s guess. Basically, Objectivity is run by an incompetent CEO who surrounds himself with “yes” people who contribute nothing to the company. The only reason the CEO hasn’t been fired by the board is because the Chairman (the former CEO) is also oblivious - and typically sits in on most of the regular meetings. Have you ever heard of a company whose Chairman is usually found sitting in the chair behind the CEO at most company meetings? It was funny to see these two similar characters together sometimes, both talking about how great it is to treat employees with contempt, talking about various ways to screw customers out of more money, and both arguing against any attempt to actually make the product work better. Best of all, on those occasions when we got a sales opportunity - a rare “bird in hand” - the CEO and Chairman would start looking around for “two in the bush" - basically, ignoring smaller prospects who actually wanted to pay something, in pursuit of larger fantasy targets who weren't even interested in the product. The company does not suffer a marketing or sales or even an engineering problem, it suffers from incompetent leadership and a CEO who absolutely would never be hired by any data technology company out there today - not even as a sales manager. I’ve met most of the CEOs of those companies, and they are all light-years ahead of Objectivity’s CEO in domain and market knowledge, common sense, and just plain management ability. Jay is fond of saying - particularly before Board meetings - that he is good at "blinding people with bullsh**." Unfortunately, people aren't blind. That's how most Objectivity employees, all of the closed/lost business opportunities, and most of the few remaining customers would characterize almost everything that comes out of his mouth.
