The Story of Softmaxx Inc.
Softmaxx was founded in 2006 to address one of the most difficult and underappreciated problems facing celluar wireless data systems (often called Machine-to-Machine (M2M)): the difficulty in using a public cellular network designed for people, in an all-machine environment. The Linkmaxx™ family of software products are designed to address this challenge.
Management Team
Ian Johnson, Chief Executive Officer
Ian Johnson, has been in the Machine-to-Machine (M2M) industry since 1994 and has worked for both Fortune 500 and startup companies, including Sony Ericsson's M2M division as head of software development. Mr. Johnson has a Bachelor's in Computer Science from the University of Victoria, and an MBA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel-Hill.
John Halliday, Vice President of Business Development
John Halliday has more than 25 years of experience in Information Systems, business development, and management. His experience includes positions of direct P&L responsibility for business units with annual revenues of more than 35MM USD. John's domestic and international assignments include Information System Principle with AT&T Solutions, Unisys, and Systems Development Corporation. Mr. Halliday holds a BA and MBA from The College of William and Mary.
Board of Advisors
Justin Helmig, Director of Product Management, Taproot Systems Inc.
Justin Helmig has over 9 years of leadership experience in the wireless industry including business, marketing, sales, and technical roles. He has worked with a wide variety of companies in the wireless value web from large semiconductor and handset vendors to early stage startups. Mr. Helmig is currently Director of Product Management at TapRoot Systems, a venture backed wireless software company, where he has P&L responsibility for TapRoot's Wi-Fi, WiMAX, and Connectivity products. Additionally, he collaborates with the rest of the management team on new market entry, corporate strategy, and corporate positioning. Before joining TapRoot, Mr. Helmig was a member of Texas Instrument's Strategy and Corporate Development group where he was responsible for alliances, mobile operator relationships, product strategy, M&A strategy, and corporate development for the wireless terminals business unit. Mr. Helmig also held several leadership positions in TI's sales organization where he was a key contributor in building the OMAP wireless processor business from a new product idea to one of the highest revenue product lines in TI. Prior to joining TI, Mr. Helmig held technical positions at General Instrument where he was a technical lead for a digital cable set-top box software team and Qualcomm where he designed and implemented software for CDMA handsets. Mr. Helmig holds a BS in Computer Engineering from Clemson University and an MBA from Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Tim Ammons, CTO, ECastCorp Inc.
Mr. Ammons is a technology executive with over twenty years of professional experience managing technology teams in small and large IT environments. He has led teams in a healthcare environment dealing with HIPAA and FDA regulations, distributed teams in multiple locations, and has utilized offshore development teams. Mr. Ammons most recently worked as Director of IS at Misys Healthcare Systems, a leading provider of software to hospitals, physicians, and homecare organizations. He led software development, infrastructure and help desk teams supporting 2500 employees, and was responsible for all corporate IS operations that included 40+ staff with a budget of $8 million. In his nine years at Misys, Mr. Ammons created a solid software infrastructure which integrated packaged and customized software. He deployed a CRM system companywide to 1000+ users, and developed a web-based portal providing a single unified view of all client information from disparate databases, resulting in many productivity gains for 1500+ users. As an example, contracts were scanned and made available on-line, thereby cutting 3-4 days off distribution to field staff. He led the deployment of SalesLogix and SalesMechanix for prospect and sales pipeline management and proposal generation, and integrated these systems into the existing software infrastructure. For these achievements, Mr. Ammons received the Misys President's Award. Mr. Ammons utilized an off-shore development team to create a major new billing system at reduced cost to the company. He built a substantial intranet and extranet presence at Misys. He did in-depth process studies with the Support and R&D groups, and identified and executed program changes that significantly improved productivity. Mr. Ammons instituted a structured design and development methodology resulting in on-time, on-target project delivery, reduced scope creep, and predictable results. To handle the high volume of IS project requests, Mr. Ammons instituted a formal Benefit/Effort analysis to properly prioritize projects based on overall benefit to the company. He led major development projects utilizing Microsoft Project and Niku. Mr. Ammons has utilized numerous Microsoft technologies throughout his career. At CompuSystems, he developed a VB-based CRM system, as well as the company's flagship practice management system. He used VB and SQL Server to develop a data warehouse product, and provided multiple-practice medical clients with enterprise-wide reporting through Office and Cognos. At Misys, Mr. Ammons deployed CMS for content management and SharePoint for document management and portal creation. He used SQL Server to create a data warehouse with a web-based front-end, to analyze financial and operational data, and deployed these business intelligence tools across the company. Mr. Ammons has an engineering and hardware background. At CompuSystems, he led systems developers as they integrated hardware peripherals and created software utilities. At Misys, he led the infrastructure team as they hardened the server and network infrastructure, moved the data center to a new building, developed business continuity plans, and instituted semi-annual disaster recovery testing. Mr. Ammons has consistently focused on cost-saving and productivity, and heavily utilized metrics to run the Misys IS group more efficiently. He challenged the help desk team using call metrics, added a bonus system, and increased productivity by 25%. He successfully negotiated Dell and Microsoft contracts for Misys worldwide, saving $2.2m over three years. He led a major consolidation of IS groups in Raleigh and Tucson, resulting in cost savings of $2m over five years and increased reliability of the computing infrastructure. Mr. Ammons has managed distributed teams with staff members across five states and internationally. He has supported large teams in India, and worked collaboratively with other business leaders in the UK. After completing his degree in Management Science at Duke University, Mr. Ammons began his career at CompuSystems in Columbia, SC, where he completed his Masters degree in MIS. CompuSystems was later acquired by Misys, and Mr. Ammons moved back to his home state of North Carolina to join Misys as IS Director. He is a SIM member, has completed SIM's Regional Leadership Forum, and serves on the CIO Forum Advisory Board.
Patrick Vernon, Associate Director, Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, UNC-Chapel Hill
Patrick Vernon is the Associate Director for the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at the University of North Carolina Chapel-Hills Kenan-Flagler business school. In addition to teaching a class on business plan analysis, Patrick coordinates several entrepreneurial programs at UNC, including the international Venture Capital Investment Competition (VCIC), which is a network of 40 events worldwide. Patrick serves as the faculty advisor for Carolina Challenge, a cross-campus business plan competition. Patrick also created TEAM-UP (Triangle Entrepreneur-Angel Match-Up), a multi-disciplinary program that includes graduate students from UNC, Duke and NC State University. Patrick specializes in "entrepreneurial educational experiences," believing that one of the best ways to compliment classroom instruction is to bring entrepreneurs and students together in meaningful, constructive exercises. Patrick joined the Kenan-Flagler team after completing the MBA program in 2003. Prior to, business school, Patrick spent 10 years running a small record label in Los Angeles, releasing four CDs and performing 500 shows with his folkadelic rock band called the Zookeepers.