Five little words: Rand don’t pull no punches.

Don’t believe me? Check out some of the commentary Rand offers up about his former employer (and mine, Visual Sciences/WebSideStory) in an interview just published with Eric Enge of Stone Temple Consulting. I only wish Eric would have conducted the interview in the last few days following Visual Sciences announcement that they are going to miss Q2 earnings by a few million dollars (OUCH!) and they’ve retained Goldman Sachs to help them shop the company, just to see what Rand would say.

Rand and Eric even discussed me of all people, with Rand offering up:

“Eric Peterson and I have been in two companies together. WebTrends, and WebSideStory, and we certainly worked together very closely when he was an analyst at Jupiter. We know each other pretty well. Eric and I don’t always agree on everything. I come from a pure solutions point of view, because my DNA is in marketing. I know what I want to achieve with these applicaitons, and Eric has an approach to these things more from a technology point of view. But, more and more, his point of view and mine are becoming very similar. I respect him, because he will tell you what he thinks. We’ve had our differences, but he and I are good friends, and I think it’s good to have differences. It makes the world go round. I think he is going to do really well as an independent by the way.”

While our time together at WebTrends was non-overlapping, and I would more or less describe our close work together while I was at Jupiter as, um, confrontational, I more or less agree with everything else he says in this paragraph (not the entire interview!) And yeah, we drink beer together and have funny conversations about industry folks and he has a unique sense of perspective that most people don’t have, so yeah he and I are friends.

Oh, and I appreciate his vote of confidence regarding the formation of Analytics Demystified.

Wait, what? You don’t know who Rand Schulman is?! You’re kidding me! Rand is an icon in the web analytics industry and, if I may say so, has one butt-kicking web site for his private venture, Rand Schulman Partners.

Anyway, thanks Rand for the nice comments and I certainly wish you and Unica all the best out there. Judah loves your stuff, that’s for sure.