Mark Madigan has an Irish background and is soft spoken. Yoram Romem is an enthusiastic Israeli that wants to conquer the world with his technology. Israelis are known to be aggressive, with little patience. Mark seems to have a typical Virginian laid-back approach. Perceptions can be misleading. Why does this combo work so well?
Actually, there's a hidden synergism here that has produced a win-win relationship and has enabled Mark's company, IT Cadre, to successfully market Yoram's unique IT technology. Yoram's Israeli company, Expert Solutions International - ESI, has developed software that can increase programmer efficiencies by a factor of 10, and create powerful decision making environments for business people, according to Mark.
Mark is a West Point Graduate. Yoram also has a military background, as do most Israelis. Israelis are considered to be stubborn. As Mark concedes, "I have a Irish Catholic stubborn streak that can rival any Israeli." Most important is Mark's total respect for "the tremendous talent coming out of Israel." And Yoram's praise for IT Cadre is equally revealing of the professional respect between the two "partners": "IT Cadre has what our customers want – solid technical capabilities, a business focus, and a track record of success in the American market." Yoram obviously values Mark’s "hands on" credentials including years of experience at IBM Federal Systems and as an IT Director at MCI.
ESI has developed a rule-based inference component for advanced decision-making applications. It is the only rules based technology to provide simple English logic rules for use in real run time. It's the use of simple English in their application that enables extraordinary cost savings as programs constantly evolve by different programmers during the life of the software. Programmers have the daunting task of changing the rules using cryptic tags that can be the source for mistakes, which require hundreds of man-hours to debug. ESI's product talks in simple English, thereby cutting a programmer's learning curve by a factor of 10, and letting the full visibility and involvement of the business users in the process.
IT Cadre has taken ESI's product one-step further. Mark explains his almost holistic approach to solving client solutions with an example: "A major client needed an answer to a small component of an overall system. We were able to convince them to pursue ESI's product for an overall core solution, rather than a smaller component. One of our advantages is that our Chief Engineer, Mike Morrisroe has an IT and an Engineering background (also from West Point). This means that rather than just ensuring ESI's software works, Mike leverages the product's capabilities to design complete solutions for customers.
This type of partnership is clearly the essence of what many Israeli high tech companies are striving to establish in order to successfully enter the US market. IT Cadre is already working with two Israeli companies: ESI and Crystal Systems Solutions, LTD.. I asked Mark bluntly: "With such a track record of working with Israeli companies, would you like to work with more Israeli companies?" "As long as they complement each other and don't compete… that could work."
