Three former Retix Inc employees have set up a consultancy in Dublin to offer advice on Open Systems Interconnection and software project management. David Gray, Fergus O’Connell and Mary Goulding, who worked together as a team at Retix UK, have obvious experience in open systems interconnection – David Gray, technical director of the consultancy, called Synaptics Ltd, says the difference now is that they can offer independent advice on OSI. Retix is basically a software company selling OSI products…we will be able to tell a company whether they should even consider OSI at the moment and offer advice on gradual migration paths. All three are still committed to OSI, but say that it will be a while yet in coming. Gray says that it’s possible that companies which arrive looking for advice on which OSI system to implement may well be told to come back in few years time, when the concept has really taken hold. The software project management division of the company has a less obvious connection with three ex-Retixers, but Fergus O’Connell, who will head up the division says he has come up with a unique methodology developed after years spent watching software projects go awry. He claims that his system will, in saved time, pay back the cost of the consultancy. Both sides of the consultancy will be supported with books – both Gray and O’Connell are writing them – as well as videos and documentation. Synaptics associate companies will soon be announced in the US, the UK and Denmark.
