Richard Ptak

Richard  has over 30 years experience in systems product management working closely with Fortune 50 companies in developing product direction and strategies at a global level. Previously Ptak held positions as senior vice president at Hurwitz Group and D.H. Brown Associates. Earlier in his career he held engineering and marketing management positions with Western Electric’s Electronic Switch Manufacturing Division and Digital Equipment Corporation.

He has been frequently quoted in major business and trade press such as The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, InformationWeek, and ComputerWorld and is author of “Manager’s Guide to Distributed Environments” (John Wiley & Sons, 1998). In addition, Ptak was technical editor of “Cisco Internet Architecture Essentials Study Guide: Cisco Internet Solutions Specialist” by Mathew Recore, Jeremy Laurenson, and Scott Herrmann (Cisco Press, 2002).

Ptak holds a master’s in business administration from the University of Chicago and a master of science in engineering from Kansas State University

Location: Amherst NH | rlptak@ptaknoel.com

Audrey Rasmussen

Audrey Rasmussen leverages her experience of over 30 years in the information technology industry, to help her clients as they navigate through the accelerating changes in the information technology industry. Over the years, she had developed experiences in various contexts (expertise in systems and application management, working with very small companies to very large corporations, industry specializations, business focus, and technical focus), which combine into unique insights into the information technology industry.

Previously, Audrey served as vice president at Enterprise Management Associates, where she focused on systems and application management. She was also a systems engineer at IBM, where she supported customers with small-to-medium sized distributed systems, as well as industry specialties.  Audrey was also co-author of the Network World Fusion Network and Systems Management newsletter for several years, and she is widely quoted in publications such as Network World, InformationWeek, Computerworld and eWeek.  Audrey holds a Bachelor of Science in business administration/finance from the University of Southern California

Location: Longmont, CO | arasmussen@ptaknoel.com

Bill Moran

Bill Moran leverages his more than 30 years experience in the IT analysis, technical management and technical education to help clients elevate their solution sales discussions out of the technical weeds.  He also organizes technical updates for clients on such issues as new hardware and software and implications related to competitive actions.

Previously Moran held positions as senior vice president and the research operations manager for Ideas International after the acquisition of D.H. Brown Associates, Inc. (DBHA).  While at DBHA, Moran managed the analyst team and led the company’s consulting business first as Research Director and then as Senior Vice President.

Before joining DHBA, Bill was a senior manager at Coopers and Lybrand leading the team who designed and developed the firm’s tax and audit software. Before joining Coopers and Lybrand, Bill held numerous management and technical management positions at IBM.  He was responsible for IBM’s worldwide large systems support for the IBM World Trade Corporation.  He also managed international teams delivering educational content (including several IBM-published RedBooks), providing customer support, and participating in benchmark testing for IBM’s mainframe systems.

Location: Poughkeepsie NY | bmoran@ptaknoel.com

Mike Karp

Mike Karp is vice president and principal analyst at Ptak, Noel &  Associates, and founder of Infrastructure Analytics.  Although Mike has been an industry analyst for the last 10 years, he has spent most of his 30-year career in the real world, working at large firms and startups that include Prime Computer, Symbios Logic, and Bellcore.  Much of his interest, writing and research focuses on driving efficiency into data center operations, on how vendors interoperate with the channel to unlock midmarket opportunities, and on reducing the agonies associated with managing complex systems.  Mike also has been known to look at the impact of technology on both technologists and on society at large, and often considers technology’s relationship with the social infrastructure.  His writing on storage and how storage delivers value to the business process is widely available on the web.

Prior to joining Ptak | Noel, Mike led the storage practice at Enterprise Management Associates and was Director of Storage Services for the Hurwitz Group.  He holds an A.B. from Franklin & Marshall College and a M.A. from Brandeis University.

Location:  Westborough, MA | mkarp@ptaknoel.com

Bill Keyworth

Leveraging over 25 years of successfully defining technology and market trends within the IT service management industry, Keyworth has established a reputation as one of the more credible and consistent voices in maximizing business value from IT management. Being the first to identify and justify market requirements and benefits for a network management (monitoring) framework thrust Keyworth into an early leadership role within the IT management industry.

Having demonstrated expertise in refocusing the marketing engines of an organization and turning product driven companies into market driven industry leaders, Keyworth now translates that market perspective into success criteria for user’s IT management initiatives. Please contact if you are interested in Bill’s services as a consultant.

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