You have, in my estimation, 6 months to a year before you have to start worrying about TQM stuff

We've already been working with S3 on a vaguely-exclusive basis for that long. We're not walking into a contract blind - you wouldn't believe (or maybe you would!) how many hours Steve and our lawyers have put into this deal.

When catching up with this thread I was, at first, quite confused with the image people are presenting of S3. Stepping back and looking from an independent perspective I guess S3 are indeed a large corporation and I am well aware of the stereotypical views that such entities attract (often with good reason).

From my personal perspective, however, I've drunk beer and eaten Thai food with four of S3's (very) senior executives and found them to be a thoroughly nice bunch of guys. They all have strong techie backgrounds, understand their products exceptionally well, and are people that I am willing to be my bosses. If half the scare stories I've read here were true I would not still be working for empeg.

Don't get the idea that we're a tiny team within a huge corporation - we're set to become one of the largest teams with wide ranging responsibilities in the core product line. That's not bad going for a two year old startup.

Rob