The (Craig) Burton Group

I owe a debt of gratitude to Craig Burton who founded The Burton Group. I really should say "we" owe a debt of gratitude to Craig because if it wasn't for Craig I'm not sure we'd be where we are today. The "we" is my old company Zoomit and all of my colleagues there, including Kim Cameron. I think I could even say the "we" is identity today because it's pretty hard to imagine being where we are today without Kim's contributions. (Kim is the chief architect of identity at Microsoft)

When we first developed Zoomit VIA - the world's first metadirectory product - Craig was especially influential but there was one decision he made for us that changed our direction forever. We first developed Zoomit VIA on Novell's UnixWare platform back in the late 1990's. However, not long after we finished development Novell sold off their UnixWare platform. We had sold Zoomit VIA to three customers before Novell made their announcement. While we were considering which Unix platform to move Zoomit VIA to next Craig simply stated: "The future is Windows. You need to move to the Microsoft platform." This was no easy decision back in 1998. And, as they say "the rest is history". Thanks for that one, Craig.

So in many ways I agree with what Craig's recent blog post. I'll be sorry to see The (Craig) Burton Group disappear. Craig, lots of people owe you thanks for your vision and efforts!

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Craig Burton, Burton Group, Gartner, Zoomit, metadirectory, identity management