function info = mw_news(action)
% This function contains the 'Mathworks in the News' information

%   Yama Habibzai
%   Copyright (c) 1984-98 by The MathWorks, Inc. All Rights Reserved
%   $Revision: 1.2 $
%   $Date: 1997/12/03 17:30:00 $
 
info =' ';
if strcmp(action, 'globe');

   info = ...
        {'                                                 '
'This story ran on page j1 of the Boston Globe on'
'04/20/97. '
' '
' At Mathworks, support + fun = success'
' '
' By Kimberly Blanton, Globe Staff, 04/20/97 '
''
' It''s a good thing Jack Little is one of Boston''s most'
' successful entrepreneurs, because he might''ve flopped as'
' a stand-up comic. Unless, of course, he packed his'
' audience with his employees.' 
' '
' Delivering a monologue on his company''s history to new'
' employees recently, Little describes his life, in 1984,'
' hacking software code in a house in the hills above Palo'
' Alto, Calif. His wife-to-be traveled frequently for her'
' job. And that was a good thing, Little contends. ''''I could'
' work on Saturday nights and not feel guilty.'''' The'
' audience twitters. '
' '
' At his first trade show, in Las Vegas, Little recalls being'
' angry at partner Cleve Moler for knocking over the'
' company''s sign, bending a corner. ''''It cost me $30!'''''
' Little says. Laughter erupts. '
' '
' Then, one day, customers began calling. To fill an order,'
' he''d throw a diskette in a Zip-lock bag and mail it off -'
' ''''state-of-the-art packaging.'''' '
' '
' By now the audience is roaring. Little''s jokes - even the'
' bad ones - are genuinely funny to this crowd. '
' '
' Little is the 40-year-old chief executive of The'
' Mathworks Inc. His Natick company sells software for'
' nerds, a dense analytical program for scientists,'
' mathematicians and engineers who design spacecrafts for'
' NASA and deep-sea robots for oceanographers. The'
' company dominates this growing market niche, analysts'
' said. '
' '
' But Mathworks'' magic, its employees say, lies not in its'
' product but in its unorthodox chief executive. In a world'
' of stuffed-shirts, Little is an iconoclast who shuns the'
' stereotypical accoutrements of corporate life - suits, ties,'
' and tassled shoes, as well as a preoccupation with'
' money, power, and the stock market. '
' '
' Little may also be one of the most popular bosses in'
' Boston. No wonder. His philosophy, conveyed with'
' humor to the new recruits during orientation in early'
' April: Have fun at work. '
' '
' And get this: The customer, he tells his recruits, does not'
' come first. '
' '
' ''''If we''re happy and motivated and doing our jobs, the'
' customer''s going to be happy,'''' he says. '
' '
' Perhaps most significant, he has resisted selling the'
' company''s stock publicly - out of fear shareholders'''
' demands will drain Mathworks'' creative spark.'
' Mathworks is what happens when a child of the ''70s'
' starts a business. '
' '
'''''At times I wonder if we''re living in communism with'
' Jack,'''' says Steve Bangert, who helped Little start'
' Mathworks. ''''He doesn''t want to go public. He doesn''t'
' want to lose control. He doesn''t want to deal with a'
' bunch of stockholders. Frequently, we have to foist'
' money on him. It''s difficult to get him to take what a'
' similarly compensated CEO would be making.'''' '
' '
' For individuals used to working elsewhere, Mathworks'''
' live-and-let-live atmosphere can seem unfocused - and'
' exhausting. There are company outings and book clubs'
' and skits and a company band. A dizzying number of'
' teams work on myriad projects. Little''s organization'
' ''''chart'''' resembles the path of a bumblebee in a garden. '
' '
' But, Ned Gulley, a former aeronautical engineer for'
' NASA recruited by Mathworks, quickly learned that'
' nothing pleases Little more than a good idea. '
' '
' Sitting in a meeting over a year ago, Gulley was struck'
' with the idea of designing a browser for the company''s'
' bug-tracking system - to more easily find where the'
' software bugs hid and who was fixing each one. If'
' Gulley''s idea worked, it would mean scrapping a new'
' system the company had just purchased. '
' '
' Gulley launched a ''stealth project'' to investigate'
' whether they could make the browser work. Two weeks'
' later, a nervous Gulley invited Little to his office for a'
' demonstration. ''''I had 10 major points to make, and by'
' the fifth point he was already getting excited about it,'''''
' Gulley says. ''''He said, ''''You already sold me. This is'
' great.'''' '
' '
' Little''s fanaticism about recognizing his employees runs'
' so deep that he tries to persuade this reporter to focus'
' the article on them. And he actually seems sincere. He'
' views ''''empathy'''' as key to managing a talented staff,'
' and he personally delivers paychecks to new employees'
' in order to learn their names. All this is key to fostering'
' an environment in which employees are encouraged to'
' innovate, a requirement for survival in a hotly competitive'
' industry. '
' '
' ''''One of the things I feel like I stand for is making sure'
' everybody takes the credit and making sure everybody''s'
' involved,'''' Little says in a recent interview. ''''There''s a'
' Japanese saying, ''The more power you give up the more'''
' power you have.'' Other CEOs who feel lonely are'
' hoarding something they shouldn''t. They might be a lot'
' more effective if they didn''t.'''' '
' '
' But success could spoil the Little style at Mathworks.'
' As employment has exploded, to 380 today, he can''t'
' spend as much time with individual employees as he used'
' to. Cloning Little ''''will be a tricky thing,'''' says Helen'
' Paret, a software program manager at Mathworks,'
' ''''because he''s pretty unique.'''' Says Elizabeth Callanan, a'
' program manager, ''''Jack is wonderful.'''' '
' '
' At Mathworks, failure is no obstacle to advancement. '
' '
' Ask Steven Lipsey. Lipsey had been at Mathworks one'
' year when he persuaded Little in 1992 to open an office'
' in Cambridge, England, to respond instantly to European'
' customers'' questions. Lipsey soon realized customers'
' detailed inquiries required a call to a software expert'
' back home anyway - the new office only added a'
' middleman. Little described the experiment as an'
' ''''unmitigated disaster'''' costing $600,000. '
' '
' ''''Looking back on it, I feel stupid,'''' Lipsey says. But at'
' Mathworks ''''there''s no such thing as blame.'''' Today,'
' Lipsey is one of two senior vice presidents, working'
' closely with Little to grapple with managing the'
' fast-growing company. '
' '
' When it comes to ideas, Little says there two kinds of'
' people: Those who have ideas, and those who can'
' recognize them. That, in a nutshell, describes how'
' Mathworks became a company. '
' '
' The company''s basic software, MatLab, was created in'
' the 1970s for use by academics by Moler, then chairman'
' of the computer science department at the University of'
' New Mexico. But Little recognized the commercial'
' potential of MatLab, which he first ran across as a'
' graduate student in electrical engineering at Stanford'
' University. '
' '
' Little completed school in 1980 and went to work for an'
' engineering consulting firm in Palo Alto. But he kept'
' thinking about Moler''s program. It was the early 1980s,'
' and personal computers were new. Little believed that'
' PCs would become more important and that engineers'
' and scientists would need software to do computations'
' on them. '
' '
' Enlisting help from Bangert, another consultant, they'
' rewrote Moler''s fortran code for PCs on a tiny Compaq'
' computer. Eventually MatLab took over their lives, and'
' their employer ''''kicked us out,'''' Little says. '
' '
' MatLab was cutting-edge. Mathworks'' first customer'
' was the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which'
' paid $500 for 10 copies. '
' '
' It slowly caught on. Gary Mosier first stumbled onto'
' MatLab as a student in the mid-1980s: ''''A lightbulb'
' went off, and I said, `Where has this been all my life? I'
' don''t have to sit down and program anymore!'''' Mosier,'
' an aerospace engineer at NASA, and his colleagues still'
' use MatLab in their work constructing space simulations'
' with data obtained from the Hubble space telescope. '
' '
' When orders for MatLab started coming in, Little.'
' decided to leave California and return to Massachusetts.'
' He and Nancy Wittenberg, whom he had met on a blind'
' date windsurfing, packed their belongings and'
' Mathworks'' files in a U-Haul truck and drove east. '
' '
' Little''s management style today seems to be a product of'
' birth order - he is the responsible oldest child - and his'
' youth in the 1970s - he used to ride a motorcycle to prep'
' school at Phillips Academy in Andover. '
' '
' Little grew up in Lincoln and has deep roots in'
' Massachusetts - his ancestor, John Alden, was on the'
' Mayflower. Little''s father, an MIT professor at the Sloan'
' School of Management, and his mother, Elizabeth Little,'
' an archaeologist with a PhD in physics from MIT, still'
' marvel that their son didn''t become a ski bum after he'
' stopped in Vail, Colo., for a season of skiing before'
' starting his first job after college. ''''It wasn''t clear to me'
' he was ever going to leave Vail,'''' his mother said. '
' '
' Little still skis. Every winter, he and Mathworks'' chief'
' scientist, Joe Hicklin, ski the treacherous slopes of the'
' Canadian Rockies, reaching them by helicopter. ''''This'
' place has no phones, no faxes, no televisions,'''' Hicklin'
' says. Little''s ''''responsibility for keeping The'
' Mathworks together and his family together is'
' nonexistent.'''' '
' '
' Most of the time, however, Little is a devoted father to'
' his two preschool daughters, says Wittenberg, who also'
' helped run Mathworks in its early years. '
' '
' Little formed Mathworks because he wanted to write'
' software. Learning to manage has been a bigger'
' challenge. He credits Jeanne O''Keefe, an experienced'
' computer executive he hired after meeting her at a block'
' party in Sherborn, where he lives, for transforming'
' Mathworks into a real company. On her first day at'
' work, Little handed her a shoebox full of undeposited'
' checks from customers. '
' '
' Asked what he has learned, Little stares out his office'
' window at the parking lot below. ''''It''s by listening that'
' you find out what motivates'''' people, he says. ''''If you'
' can find out what excites people and what they''re good'
' at they''ll excel at that.'''' '
' '
' Whatever Little''s secret, it has worked. In 1992, he was'
' named Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year in New'
' England by the national accounting firm Ernst'
' &Young,joining such chief executives as Daniel Smith of'
' Cascade Communications Corp. and James Vincent of'
' Biogen. '
' '
' Today, Mathworks dominates the $150 million-$200'
' million market for software that analyzes research data,'
' according to Ken Kornbluh, vice president of Scitech'
' International Inc., a Chicago software distributor. '
' '
' Little, Moler, and Bangert still hold most of the equity in'
' Mathworks. '
' '
' Although accurate sales figures on private companies in'
' this market are difficult to obtain, Kornbluh says, ''''If'
' Mathworks isn''t the largest they''re real close to number'
' one'''' in market share. One strong competitor is Visual'
' Numerics of Boulder, Colo., with an estimated $35'
' million in sales, he says. '
' '
' Mathworks said only the company''s sales are more than'
' $50 million and that it is profitable. '
' '
' If Little decides to take Mathworks public, he says it'
' would be to reward loyal employees. But employees'
' would lose such perks as the $200,000 trip planned for'
' their families this summer at a Mount Washington resort. '
' '
' ''''Every cent we''ve spent on the people who work here'
' has paid for itself many times over,'''' Little says. '
' '
' Shareholders, he says, just wouldn''t understand. '};

end
