Pros
I think Tom Sawyer Software is a terrific company. The company was the earliest innovator in the graph visualization market, and has broadened into data visualization. In recent times it has also released several finished solutions as part of a growing Tom Sawyer Perspectives offering. The company has far and away the very best graph visualization technology on the market today, and has an excellent technology platform. The company also had good timing with the rise of graph databases and other data intensive industries. It is now finally making very good inroads with top US and European and Asian enterprises in various markets. The company's products are really top-notch and has had continuity in the development. The company has also had good staff stability across multiple sites and has been quite resilient over the years. The company has bootstrapped to success and this is really something that is quite difficult today in the software industry. This illustrates that the CEO and senior management must have had very strong operational skills to pull this off over the years. I think their long-term CEO has been particularly critical to this success. He has been there since the company was founded, and the original concepts of the company were his. Even today he also continues to drive a great deal of the direction across the company and has particularly strong skills in concepts and operational and sales skills. He also has unmatched skills when it comes to attention to detail, testing, and does fine design and conceptual work. I think this company would definitely not be what it is today without him. He is quite brilliant sometimes. There is also very good depth in senior management around the company, and this creates a balance that is hard to match. The company also is gaining traction in its marketing and sales teams in the last few years. I think the culture internally has been improving in the last years, and there seem to be very good moods and relationships all around. People seem to genuinely care about each other, and also I find that the company has been quite generous and caring to the staff. On more than one occassion I have seen the company management go the extra mile to support H1 visas, green cards, send people back to school for more education, or support families with children, or support persons that need more flexibility. It really is open in this way and people seem to appreciate it. The company also has very nice facilities, and has plenty of interesting projects going on. Of course the company is trying to hire carefully and find the right people to help it move forward over the next few years, and is trying to continue its expanion around the world.
Cons
The company needs to continue strengthening it's operations and building the right tools to operate efficiently. Even with rapid grow, it's essential to be organized and operate well. It would be nice to see this operational and administrative development move more quickly. I know the company is interested in this area too. The company also needs to look for more good engineering managers and more developers, and hopefully the company can also strengthen its product management function in the next year.
