Matt Wall

I've been involved with messaging and email technologies since 1989, with software development since 1981. I worked as a mail sysadmin and a developer on some early client-server systems, internet gateway systems, and early POP servers at academic jobs (at Brandeis University and Swarthmore College, and a part-time gig at MIT) before going to graduate school at Drexel University in 1993-95. At Drexel I worked in human factors, text mapping systems, programmed for the Math and Computer Science Department on a courseware project (for Calculus and the Maple software package), and did my thesis on an object class definition and library for "Pie" menus for the Newton Technical Kit (!!). (I formed a company briefly to market the latter; I sold two copies.) The software engineering methodology I learned there was based on Joint Iterative Development (a variation on JAD), a sort of proto-agile process, along with the usual suspects (CMM, etc.) After Drexel I took a job as Applications Group Manager at the Andrew Systems Group at Carnegie Mellon University, where I was Project Cyrus manager and involved in the definition of the IMAP4rev1, Sieve, and ACAP standards (the first two now pretty widely successful). I then worked as a co-founder at Cyrusoft, which made the Mulberry Internet Mail Client and a number of server products, and later at the Landrew Group (not to be confused with the current Landrew Group.com, with which I have no affiliation, and which seems kind of weird), which developed a prototype very small appliance, a "PIP" or Personal Internet Provider, which combined a number of services in a turnkey system. Both companies are sadly defunct (for which I share as much responsibility as anybody). I happily was a stay at home Dad for a while, and joined Sun Microsystems as the engineering manager for its messaging server product in 2007. I stayed at home with our second child again for a stint, and am embarking upon a new adventure in the fall of 2010.

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