I wrote this up recently because someone asked, and I feel the need to share.  Since I no longer work for Altiris or Symantec, and despite the risk of creating a karmic debt, I’m gonna go ahead and do something I don’t usually do — publicly speak ill (albeit factually) of someone in the industry.  I figure the risk is low; it’s unlikely that John Dvorak will ever be the key to getting a job I want, and if he gives one of my products a poor review, that would likely only help sales.  So here you go…

Dvorak was a guest speaker at an Altiris ManageFusion conference a few years ago in Vegas. Our PR director came looking for volunteers to attend a hospitality dinner with our guest. I jumped at the opportunity, as I “grew up” reading Dvorak’s columns and considered him an industry visionary (which he was, at one time, but that time is long past… ).

He regaled us with talk of his wine collection and his world travels, revealing his caustic attitude toward just about everything and everyone. At one point, knowing that Altiris is based in Utah and that most of the people at the table were from Utah, he talked about the “gene pool crisis” there. He said he noticed the narrow eye placement and protruding foreheads as soon as he got off the plane in Salt Lake. I took exception to that, saying I’m from somewhere else and people in Utah look no different. He asked where I was from. When I replied, “Florida,” he said, “well, there you go — you have the same inbreeding problem down there.”

So… Not wanting to create an incident for Altiris, I ordered a drink and shut up the rest of the evening. There was another product manager with us, from Australia, who was both diplomatic enough to hold conversation with Dvorak and drunk enough to endure it. He pretty much saved the evening for us from a PR perspective.