Compete acquired by Taylor Nelson Sofres

Compete, a company I worked for as Chief Software Architect, was just recently acquired by Taylor Nelson Sofres. This is a remarkable achievement for Compete and a great deal for both Compete and TNS. If you're interested, you can read the official postings about the acquisition. Congratulations to everyone at Compete and TNS!

Learning about this acquisition made me feel very proud and quite nostalgic. It was back in April 2001 that I got involved with Compete. I had wrapped up a long contract at Oracle, spent a month in India with my wife visiting her extended family, and was back in Nashua, NH contemplating the irrational exuberance of what we would all soon call "dot bomb." I had been contracting for a while, and while that was good fun I felt it was time to do something a bit more daring/challenging.

One thing led to another and I found myself in Boston, on oh-so-chic Newbury Street of all places, sitting in a literally transparent office on the upper floors of a converted church building, discussing a company called Compete with its CTO (and now my good friend) David Cancel. I wound up joining Compete a few weeks later as its Chief Software Architect, a position that I held for almost 5 years. I think I was the 11th or 12th person Compete hired. Compete rode the waves of dot com and dot bomb, and eventually found its way to become the strong player it is today, thanks to its excellent management team and a lot of hard work by everybody.

Fast forward 7 years and Compete is now a recognized industry force - an established player with a work force of close to 100 extremely talented and dedicated individuals. Expect more great things from this company in the future!