The chief executive of Sanga International Inc, one of the original Java software companies that has actually made a reasonably successful business out of it, Shane Maine has moved upstairs and been replaced by John Andrews, formerly the chief information officer of CSX Corp and CEO of its technology division. Maine stays on as chairman, responsible for mergers and acquisitions and the overall financial health of the company. Apparently Maine was an interim CEO all along and the company was looking for a more high profile name to take over. He is now moving to Europe to expand the operations there, while his brother Shaun Maine is off to Asia-Pacific to develop the business, while remaining in place as president and COO. Meanwhile, CSX’s former VP of CSX Technology Marshal Gibbs, becomes Sanga’s new chief technology officer and president of the company’s US division. The company is looking for both acquisitions and suitable resellers. It says it has two already signed and is aiming for ten this year. Sanga and CSX got very close last month with the establishment of a joint venture to redevelop one of CSX’s supply chain management products using Sanga’s Java components set and redeploy it across other vertical industries. Sanga itself has 17 vertical Java applications under the Sanga Enterprise Solutions (SES) banner that it sells apart from the venture. Prior to CSX Andrews was formerly CIO at GTE, so has a lot of connections in the telecoms industry, which is another market Sanga is after. The joint venture, which doesn’t have a name, is majority-owned by Sanga, and its status remains unchanged by this move, said Shaun Maine. He could not comment on any future financial options for the company going forward, including a possible IPO. Sanga is another of those computer industry success stories with its origin in fast food. The brothers Maine were chatting just over a couple of years ago in a McDonald’s with a friend who used to be a software engineer at Lotus, about what would be the next big thing in the computer industry. The friend suggested something like Notes in Java, and Shane Maine promised that if it could be done, he’d fund the development and distribute it. The company has moved on a bit since its formation in March 1996.
