Q&A: BMC's new CTO talks about Tivoli, database plans

Tom Bishop, a 20-year IT veteran, is in charge of product vision and direction

By Matt Hamblen

May 23, 2005 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld - BMC Software Inc. in Houston named Tom Bishop as its chief technology officer last week, putting him in charge of product vision and direction. The 20-year industry veteran served as CTO at Tivoli Software before it became a part of IBM and for three years after the acquisition. Most recently, he served as CTO at Austin-based Vieo Inc.


Tom Bishop, CTO at BMC Software Inc.

Bishop spoke to Computerworld's Matt Hamblen last week.
Why BMC? I had looked at a number of opportunities, and what BMC offered was the most interesting. There were many factors, not the least of which was the quality of the team and the drive and vision of the management team. Also, there is the opportunity of BMC going forward with the Business Service Management initiative. I'm interested in driving that vision forward.
You have insight into Tivoli, a major BMC competitor, with your experience as CTO there, right? I joined Tivoli when it was quite small in early 1994, and in 18 months, it had become a public company, and one year after it became public, we were acquired by IBM. So I was the IBM Tivoli CTO from 1996 to '99.
Why did you leave Tivoli? I really wanted some things that were more cutting-edge. ... I have long believed that one of the biggest problems with systems management is that it's very complex and just too damn hard. That's been one theme running through my head the last few years. ... At Tivoli, nothing would compare with what BMC has had for several years.
Then you went to Vieo, which does systems management? At Vieo, I was trying to build a data center automation application, and we got into systems and network management. I was able to prove out concepts at Vieo and gain appreciation for how this market was going to evolve. But I found that large customer organizations are very reluctant to entrust major software management to a start-up company, which was part of my decision to come to BMC.
The challenge is to find a company big enough to have staying power and the trust of customers to evolve IT infrastructure to take advantage of virtualization and automation, yet still [be] nimble. Some companies are plain too big, and one of the companies I talked with -- Computer Associates -- just seemed too big.
Everybody says the concept behind what BMC calls Business Service Management is important, but why? The answer's rather straightforward. For the longest time, what happened in IT [organizations]

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