Alain Rossmann

Alain Simon Rossmann (born 1956[1]) is a French entrepreneur who was a member of the early Apple Macintosh team and who went on to found or co-found nine startups, of which three went public (Radius,[2] C-Cube Microsystems,[3] Unwired Planet[4]), three were acquired (EO by AT&T,[5] Vudu by Walmart,[6] PSS Systems by IBM[7]), and two were dissolved (Zonbu,[8] Klip[9]). The ninth is his current company, Machinify.[10]

Alain Rossmann
Born1956 (age 66–67)
Alma materÉcole Polytechnique
École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
Stanford University
Occupation(s)Engineer, entrepreneur, executive
SpouseJoanna Hoffman
Children2

Education

In 1979, Rossmann graduated at the École Polytechnique[11][12] with a BS in mathematics and physics. He completed an MS in civil engineering at École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées[11] in 1981 and an MBA from Stanford University in 1983.[10]

Career

Rossmann was head evangelist at the Macintosh division of Apple Computer from 1983 to 1986.[10][13][14] He worked with Joanna Hoffman and the couple subsequently married.[15][16] Next, he founded Radius, a company that built Macintosh peripherals.

He was vice-president of marketing and sales from 1986 to 1989.[2][10] Its IPO was in 1990.[17] He was vice-president of operations of C-Cube Microsystems, a leading developer of MPEG integrated circuits, from 1989 to 1992.[3] Its IPO was in 1994. It was acquired by LSI Logic in 2001.[18]

Moving into pen computing, Rossmann was CEO of EO from 1992 to 1994. It built and marketed the EO Personal Communicator. It was acquired by AT&T in 1993.[5] With his colleague Celeste Baranski, he won the Discover Award from Discover Magazine in 1993 for this product.[19] In an early smartphone development, he was founder and CEO of Unwired Planet (later renamed Phone.com, then Openwave, then back to Unwired Planet) from 1994 to 2001. It developed the Wireless Application Protocol for smartphone microbrowsers.[20] Its IPO was in 1999.[4][21]

After Unwired Planet, he was founder and CEO then chairman of PSS Systems, an information lifecycle governance company, from June 2001 to October 2010. It was acquired by IBM in 2010.[7] His online movie service, Vudu, was acquired by Walmart.[6] He was founder and CEO from June 2005 to March 2010.[22] Next Rossmann was founder and chairman of Zonbu, subscription-based personal computer maker, from April 2006 to December 2007.[8]

From March 2011 to January 2015 he worked at Klip, Inc., a social video start up, as founder and CEO.[9][10]

References
  1. Annie Kahn (1998-11-08). "Un Français au cœur du réseau". lemonde.fr. Retrieved 2016-10-28..
  2. "Stanford's Progeny: A Sampling" (PDF). Business Week. 1997-08-25. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-12-22. Retrieved 2015-10-24. 1986 Radius: Mike Boich, Burrell Smith, Alain Rossmann, Andy Hertzfeld
  3. "BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY; Chip Leads Way to New Video Products". New York Times. 1990-02-21. Retrieved 2015-10-24. Alain Rossmann, C-Cubed's vice president,
  4. "The Top Entrepreneurs". Business Week. 2000-01-10. Archived from the original on 2016-01-21. Retrieved 2015-10-24. In five years, ALAIN ROSSMANN's Phone.com (PHCM), formerly known as Unwired Planet, ... Phone.com stock has soared 1,500%, to around $130, since its June initial public offering.
  5. Kaplan, Samuel Jerold (1994). Startup : a Silicon Valley adventure. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-025731-4.
  6. Stone, Brad (2010-02-22). "Wal-Mart Adds Its Clout to Movie Streaming". New York Times. Retrieved 2015-10-24. In 2008, Vudu's chief executive left the company and was replaced by Alain Rossmann, a co-founder who was an early Apple executive and a pioneer in making the Web accessible from cellphones.
  7. "IBM Acquires PSS Systems" (Press release). IBM. 2010-10-13. Retrieved 2010-10-13.
  8. Markoff, John (2007-07-16). "A PC That Uses Less Energy, but Charges a Monthly Fee -". New York Times. Retrieved 2015-10-24. That led him and Mr. Rossmann, a former Apple executive who has started many Silicon Valley companies, to pursue the possibility of creating an appliancelike computer tailored to consumers who have no computer expertise.
  9. Clark, Don (2011-09-20). "Startup Veteran Takes On Mobile Video with Klip". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2015-10-24. Rossmann on Tuesday unveiled Klip, a new startup...
  10. "Alain Rossmann". LinkedIN. Retrieved 2015-10-24.
  11. He belongs to the X1976 promotion, cf. the website of the Association des anciens élèves de l’École polytechnique (the AX) (the Old fellows association). His record shows that he is also an "ingénieur des ponts et chaussées" (i.e. civil works engineer, in his case coming from Polytechnique and so being a civil servant) and asked to be freed from his duties with the French State ("en disponibilité", i.e. on leave).
  12. Website of the library of the École Polytechnique Archived 2015-03-02 at the Wayback Machine, thumb index « BCX Catalogs → Polytechnicien family », search for « Alain Rossmann », you then get : « Rossmann, Alain Simon (X 1976) ».
  13. Swartz, Jon; Krantz, Matt; Martin, Scott (2011-10-07). "What's next for Apple?". USA Today. Retrieved 2015-10-24. "We all live in the world that Steve invented," says Alain Rossmann, who worked with Jobs at Apple in the mid-1980s.
  14. Evangelista, Benny (2011-09-26). "Alain Rossmann's Flip: social video on smart phone". SFGate. Retrieved 2015-10-24. Rossmann was an Apple evangelist under Steve Jobs during the development of the first Macintosh computer.
  15. Guglielmo, Connie (2012-10-08). "In Photos: Apple Alumni: Where Are They Now? - Joanna Hoffmann". Forbes. Archived from the original on October 8, 2012. Retrieved 2015-10-24. She is married to Alain Rossmann, another former member of the Mac team and longtime Silicon Valley entrepreneur
  16. Terdiman, Daniel (2009-01-22). "Recollections of the Mac's creators". CNET. Archived from the original on 2015-01-23. Retrieved 2015-09-07.
  17. "Radius Completes IPO". InfoWorld. 1990-08-27. p. 40. Retrieved 2015-10-24.
  18. Flynn, Laurie J. (2001-03-27). "TECHNOLOGY BRIEFING: DEALS; LSI LOGIC TO BUY C-CUBE MICROSYSTEMS". The New York Times. Retrieved 2015-10-24.
  19. "1993 Discover Awards: Winner: Personal Communicator: Celeste Baranski & Alain Rossmann, EO". Discover Magazine. 1993-10-01. Retrieved 2015-04-10.
  20. CNet Investor.com (2000-07-24). "Stock Wealth of CEOs". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2015-10-24. Alain Rossmann Phone.com +81,547,200 630,631,477
  21. Martin, Scott (2011-11-20). "Klip reels in $8 million". USA Today. Retrieved 2015-10-24. In the dot-com boom, he served as CEO of mobile browser start-up OpenWave, formerly Phone.com, which launched one of the sizzling-hot IPOs of the era.
  22. Stone, Brad (2007-04-29). "Vudu Casts Its Spell on Hollywood - New York Times". The New York Times. Retrieved 2015-10-24. 'This shift can look very slow in the beginning and very sudden at some moment in the future,' says Alain Rossmann, a Silicon Valley veteran and the chairman of Vudu.
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