Derbyshire, Steve

A-List 2006

Job title: Managing director.

Company: Telamon Systems.

Year of birth: 1956.

Place of birth: Manchester.

Career outline: I had a brief sojourn with the social services before I moved into IT in early 1981 working for BT. Initially, I worked on small business computers and eventually graduated to running a medium sized IBM mainframe datacentre. I left BT in 1987 and went to work for Comparex and was involved in the supply of HDS, IBM plug-compatible mainframes, leaving in 1989 to establish my first business: VM Solutions. Following a five-year stint with VM Solutions and seeing it through a merger with CAD company ASCL to form Interacive Computing Europe, I departed to establish Telamon Systems.

What motivates you every morning to get up and work in the channel? The challenge of learning something new every day, working with exciting, interesting and inventive people to solve difficult problems in novel ways.

What has been the most over-hyped technology in the past five years? CRM Systems.

What will be the most underrated technology in the next five years? Good security systems. They should be safe, yet so easy to use and so common that they are taken for granted.

Which technology would you most like to have invented? The iPod.

Do you have any regrets from your time in the industry? Only that there is never enough time to work with all the things that interest me.

What is the biggest hurdle you have faced in your career? Making the transition from being hands-on technical to running a business and then learning to think strategically about that business.

What is the biggest success of your career? Seeing Telamon through 11 years of phenomenal change in an industry that never stays still.

What piece of technology could you not live without? The in-car CD changer.

What would be your advice to anyone starting a career in IT? Find the niche that suits you and get on and enjoy it. There are so many things you can do in this wonderful industry and so much choice that it’s difficult to know where to start, so start with the nearest opportunity and explore from there.

What is your favorite computer game? Tetris.

What would you like for Christmas if you could have anything? A Harley-Davidson Softtail.

What is your favorite karaoke song? Satisfaction, by the Rolling Stones.

Do you have any phobias? No.

How many beers before you fall over? 6.

Number of staff you manage? 25.

What is your golf handicap? 99.

What car do you drive? Volvo.

Number of air miles you have? 0.