David's Observations
Maximizing Value in the Information Technology Industry

OUR TEAM

Our team is comprised of individuals with a track record of successful transactions in the IT sector and a broad range of experience working with troubled companies. We provide the attention and experience often needed in troubled situations to create winning outcomes for our clients, or to create a competitive environment to maximize value in a strategic transaction.
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David Heinemann 
As President and Managing Director Mr. Heinemann has provided financial advisory services to clients in the information industry since 1984. He has participated in some 60 transactions in the industry with a cumulative value of over $600 million. Among others, he has advised clients in transactions with Advent Software, American Management Systems, CGI, BMC Software, Compuware, Eastman Kodak, EDS, Geocapital, Jefferson-Pilot, Martin Marietta (now Lockheed Martin), MediaNews Group, and Online Software International and Pansophic (both now Computer Associates), and Primedia. Mr. Heinemann was on the Board of Directors of INPUT, a market research firm focusing on the IT Industry and Dot4, Inc., an IT services company. In addition Mr. Heinemann advises government IT organizations and investors regarding strategic transactions in the government IT market.

As a strategic advisor, Mr. Heinemann takes an active role with his clients. In some cases he takes on an interim management role to restructure and/or reposition a client's business for success or refine/refocus its information based product offering or IT infrastructure.

Prior to forming Heinemann & Co., Inc., Mr. Heinemann was with Broadview Associates. Prior to that, Mr. Heinemann developed the personal computer book and software publishing program for Prentice-Hall, Inc.

Mr. Heinemann holds a MBA from Columbia University and a Sc.B. in Physics from Brown University.
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John Dexheimer
John is President of LightWave Advisors, Inc. and has a record of success in helping leading edge firms receive over $800 million of equity investments since founding LAI in 1999. He is also a partner of First Analysis Private Equity Fund IV www.firstanalysis.com and founder of DS3. He has advised on over 100 completed company financings and mergers in software, communications, electronics and optics.

In his prior career as an investment banker, he led the IPO of Uniphase in 1993 and managed the equity research and venture organization of CE Unterberg Towbin, a brokerage firm, from 1990 to 1999. Prior to 1990, John was previously in the software industry with GE, DRI and Broadview International. He has helped found startups and has a record of initiating and structuring successful private investments for affiliated equity funds, including investments resulting in over a dozen IPOs since 1986, and has had several part-time operating roles in startups and turnarounds.

He has been a long-time board member of New Focus (now merged with Bookham) and kSARIA, a manufacturer of automation equipment that he co-founded. He was Co-Chairman of the Executive Forum for the Optical Society of America (OSA) and is an advisor to The NSF-funded Institute of Mathematical Applications. Since 1999, he has consulted to a number of large corporations, emerging firms and leading venture funds on startups, optics investments and acquisitions. He holds a B.S. degree from the University of Minnesota Institute of Technology and an M.B.A. from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration.


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Barry Radick

Barry leads the firm's practice advising companies regarding restructuring and bankruptcy alternatives and implementing restructuring, divestiture and liquidity/liquidation plans. Barry's skill and experience in working with troubled situations is rooted in his 30 year career at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy where he was the co-leader of that law firm's national restructuring and bankruptcy practice.

He represented major constituencies in large restructurings and bankruptcies, including Olympia & York, Trump, Kalikow, Mendik entities, McCrory Stores and Rockefeller Center. On the business side, Barry recently completed engagements as the advisor to Classic Media, LLC in connection with its acquisition, with Random House, of all the entertainment, media and publishing assets of Golden Books, Inc., and as restructuring advisor to W. Atlee Burpee & Co. Additionally, Barry is currently serving as restructuring advisor to several privately owned e-commerce businesses, as Restructuring Officer of ARM Financial Group, Inc., and is administering several Chapter 11 plans of reorganization.

Barry has written and lectured frequently on restructuring and insolvency subjects and serves as an expert witness on bankruptcy issues. He is a director of two not-for-profit charitable organizations. Barry obtained his B.A. from Rutgers University and his J.D. from St. John's Law School.


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Omer Eiferman 

Mr. Eiferman’s focus is working with early stage technology companies, often based in Israel, to help identify strategic partnering options in the US including merger, acquisition, OEM and distribution relationships.   Mr. Eiferman’s technology background includes large complex software systems, software architecture & design, location based services, Bluetooth, wireless LAN, OLAP, Internet, B2B, and management systems.  He has served in a variety of marketing, development and product management roles for technology companies. Mr. Eiferman recently advised an Israel-based medical software company on their sale to a US-based pharmacy systems company.

A graduate of Bar-Ilan University in Israel with a degree in Computer Science and Statistics, Mr. Eiferman was Deputy Commander of a C-130 squadron and achieved the rank of Major in the Israeli Air Force during his 10-year military career.





















David's Observations

Cloud Computing --- Back to the Future or Get Off of My Cloud?

 by David Heineman on 01/11/11

OK, everyone see's the advantages of buying computing and communication infrastructure by the slice.  It has low upfront costs, it's wrapped with management services and you can easily change your supply to match your demand.  It's easy, right? 

  

What's the downside?   Well, we can look to two of the leading poets of the last century, Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, and an ode they wrote regarding the "Cloud" in 1965  to get a deeper understanding of the trade-offs in the cloud computing panacea. 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZSQcv2-JUI

 GET OFF OF MY CLOUD
(M. Jagger/K. Richards)
I live in an apartment on the ninety-ninth floor of my block
And I sit at home looking out the window
Imagining the world has stopped
Then in flies a guy who's all dressed up like a Union Jack
And says, I've won five pounds if I have his kind of detergent pack
I said, Hey! You! Get off of my cloud
Hey! You! Get off of my cloud
Hey! You! Get off of my cloud
Don't hang around 'cause two's a crowd
On my cloud, baby

Sound familiar? --- a little bit like Google apps and all the other "near-free" services?  We can expect that these cloud services will be available at a low cost if we will put up with ads for who knows what and if we use the vendor's detergent (software). Can you live with these trade-offs?

The telephone is ringing
I say, "Hi, it's me. Who is it there on the line?"
A voice says, "Hi, hello, how are you
Well, I guess I'm doin' fine"
He says, "It's three a.m., there's too much noise
Don't you people ever wanna go to bed?
Just 'cause you feel so good, do you have
To drive me out of my head?"
I said, Hey! You! Get off of my cloud
Hey! You! Get off of my cloud
Hey! You! Get off of my cloud
Don't hang around 'cause two's a crowd
On my cloud baby

If you live in the cloud there will be privacy and usage issues as foreshadowed by the esteemed scientists Jagger and Richards. Do you want to be told when your apps need to go to bed?

 I was sick and tired, fed up with this
And decided to take a drive downtown
It was so very quiet and peaceful
There was nobody, not a soul around
I laid myself out, I was so tired and I started to dream
In the morning the parking tickets were just like
A flag stuck on my window screen
I said, Hey! You! Get off of my cloud
Hey! You! Get off of my cloud
Hey! You! Get off of my cloud
Don't hang around 'cause two's a crowd
On my cloud

 Finally, if the ads, privacy and usage issues don't get to you, maybe the regulatory and tax issues will. As commerce grows on the web do you think the tax man will be far behind? I don't. Now that we are getting net-neutrality regulations, are there armies of attorneys being stood-up to interpret and bend these regulations?

I guess my biggest take-away from this rigorous analysis is that, you know what, if you are going to use a social utility like the cloud, you've got to put up with some of the negative things that go with it. Sorry Keith and Mick, two's a start --- not a crowd. Learn to live with it.

 

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