Gareth Croy (left) and Kimberley Turnbull of OpenEye at the Icehouse Incubator last year. Photo / Adrian Malloch
Computerworld is carrying a bizarre story about Auckland digital display company OpenEye Displays, whose chief executive Gareth Croy seems to have disappeared without telling his staff where he's gone.
I first came across OpenEye back in 2003, when co-founder John McCarthy showed me around
the Regency Duty Free shop at Auckland Airport, which had been decked out with the company's digital screens.
The idea was that the LCDs travelled around a ceiling-mounted rail system so they could be positioned over the stand or shelves the Regency wanted to draw attention to. The signage could be updated remotely with new advertising. It was a nice set-up and I thought the company had real potential.
Obviously so did other people. Both OpenEye and Croy picked up awards in this year's Gen-i New Zealand Incubator Awards so the company certainly seemed to be going places.
Computerworld quotes Andy Hamilton, the chief executive of Auckland's Icehouse incubator where OpenEye is based: "This highlights to me what the challenges and risks these early stage companies have... sometimes the growth gets ahead of the capability of the business to support that," he said.
With an ambitious schedule of global expansion in its sights it looks like OpenEye has over-extended itself and has run into trouble.
Still, that's no way for a CEO to act, especially the boss of a start-up. Keeping hold of staff is hard enough and in a small company the departure of a few experienced staff can be devastating.
Croy needs to come home from wherever he is and face the music or the writing is certainly going to be on the wall - in digital high-definition.
