Lund names new president, aims at services

Director of services takes lead, aims firm at its foundations

A company best known for its HP 3000 performance software took a step back to its roots, as Lund Performance Solutions named Scott Pierson as the firm’s first new president in 15 years.

Over that period Bob Lund served as president of the company, which has added software products for HP-UX, Linux, Solaris and Windows NT in more recent years. Lund remains with the company in a daily capacity as CEO, advising Pierson, who joined the firm in September of 2000 and became director of professional services.

“Scott has a broad-based IT and corporate background that will help our company achieve its goals,” said Lund. “Vice president Andy Herbert, who has been acting president, will continue as vice president, but will now be freed up to forge new business alliances and continue to build our sales team.”

Pierson has 18 years of experience as an IT professional and corporate executive. Before coming to Lund he was senior computer scientist with Computer Sciences Corporation, where he was also a long-time customer of Lund’s HP e3000 system support. Pierson has directed the introduction of Lund’s newest support services for MPE and Unix platforms, and renewed the company’s commitment to ongoing support of MPE systems and products.

The new president said that focusing on service not only helps develop new products through better field information, it also returns Lund to its roots.

“It’s understanding that customer perspective and living the IT job,” Pierson said of the deeper contact through services, “not just trying to understand it from afar. I think that is instrumental in returning to our core competencies and roots, where Bob founded the company 15 years ago.”

Pierson noted that Lund began as a service delivery company which gave away software to its consulting customers. “Without our service delivery we are just an incomplete company, trying to guess what our customers want,” he said. “Software and services go hand in hand, and they’re very equal.”

The changes to the 3000 community’s purchasing patterns haven’t emerged yet since HP’s November 3000 announcement, he added. That’s because Lund has products available on target platforms suggested for migration.

“Since Hewlett-Packard announced they were going to discontinue support for the e3000 platform, we’ve found ourselves performing a balancing act,” said Pierson. “Many of our customers need continuing support with MPE systems, and we have no plans to abandon that platform. Our plans are to support the HP 3000 well past HP’s targeted obsolescence date. But others are ready to migrate to Unix and NT, and we have new services and software to help them plan and execute their migration.”

Lund is also entering the system security software market. The company has divided its products and services into three distinct groups: Performance Solutions, which offer system performance analysis tools such as De-Frag/X and Performance Gallery Gold; Professional Services, delivering consulting and support for system operation and migration; and Security Solutions, exclusive North American distribution rights to a suite of Windows-based security programs to restrict access.