Lynx Software Technologies, a developer of open architecture software solutions for mission critical embedded systems, announced the appointment of Al Maillet as Chief Revenue Officer. Maillet was previously with Mercury Systems, a global commercial technology company serving the aerospace and defense industry, where he served as the Vice President of Product Line Sales. In this new role, Maillet will oversee the Company's go-to-market function, strategic account management, and sales operations, reporting to CEO Tim Reed. Ian Ferguson, who in addition to serving as Lynx's Vice President of Marketing & Partnerships has served as the Interim Vice President of Sales, will return to a full-time focus on driving the Company's top-of-the-funnel marketing efforts and establishing industry partnerships with leading technology providers to extend Lynx's reach and strengthen its value proposition. "Our customers are looking toward the implementation of flexible, open architecture software solutions to enable their mission critical systems. Al's longstanding experience in the aerospace and defense end markets, with Mercury Systems and Wind River, will help Lynx as we accelerate our organic growth initiatives, and I'm excited to welcome a sales leader such as Al who has a track record of establishing scalable processes, building high-performance teams, and exceeding sales targets to our executive leadership team," Reed stated.

François Maillet doesn't consider himself to be overly into hockey -- he says he watches about a quarter of the Montreal Canadiens' regular-season games. Not even a gigantic fan," he says. But when it comes time for the playoffs, he's admittedly a full-fledged bandwagon-jumper. "Right now, I think like most people, I watch every game," Maillet says. And now he's got a reason to watch -- he's hacked into his Verdun home's smartphone-controlled lighting system to generate a sound and light show every time the Habs score. When the Habs score, red, white and blue lights flash for about 30 seconds while playing the Habs' old goal song (appropriately titled "Le Goal Song" by Montreal band L'Oreille Cassée). It helps that he's a computer scientist who specializes in artificial intelligence and machine learning. Last year, he had set up a manual button he would push to play the goal song used by the Montreal Canadiens. Having moved recently, he got new programmable Phillips Hue lights installed in his living room. The lights can be told to brighten, dim and change colours with a smartphone control system. "I was talking to some colleagues and I said, 'Wouldn't it be cool if I just made them flash to the music?'" After talking it out with his co-workers at Montreal startup Datacratic, he took the long Easter weekend to develop a prototype written with the Python programming language. "Computer science is really, really cool.