Randall C Kennedy is director of research and cofounder of Competitive Systems Analysis, an IT consulting company. He was a former systems analyst for Giga Information Group [ citation needed ]. Kennedy was a contributor for InfoWorld , focusing on Windows, Microsoft and other topics, but was dismissed on February 21, 2010. In his announcement of the dismissal, InfoWorld editor-in-chief, Eric Knorr, stated that Kennedy had been dismissed for violating InfoWorld's policies of "integrity and honesty", and for "breach of trust". [1]
Kennedy discovered an undocumented change in the protocol used by the Microsoft SQL Server Net-Lib component from named pipes to TCP/IP in Microsoft Data Access Components 2.6 that was fixed in the subsequent version 2.7).[ citation needed ] He also saw curious benchmark results when comparing performance of SQL Server on Windows NT 4 versus Windows 2000 but was prevented from publishing in Network World once Microsoft threatened legal action for his violation of the SQL Server software licence agreement.[ citation needed ]
Kennedy was dismissed from InfoWorld on 19 February 2010[ citation needed ] for 'misrepresenting himself to other media organisations as Craig Barth CTO of Devil Mountain Software (aka exo.performance.network) in interviews for a number of stories regarding Windows and other Microsoft software topics' as Eric Knorr of InfoWorld explained 21 February. Knorr also explained that Devil Mountain Software 'is a Randall Kennedy business that specialises in the analysis of Windows performance data. There is no Craig Barth and Kennedy has stated this fabrication was a misguided effort to separate himself (or more accurately his InfoWorld blogger persona) from his Devil Mountain Software business'. [2]
Kennedy now insists he was not sacked, that InfoWorld were trying to save the situation, that he on his own decided to resign, and that he is having a good time on his island home on Mauritius. [3]
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