Obituary: Bob Abraham, creator of Freeman Reports |
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By Jo Maitland, Senior News Director
11 Jul 2007 | SearchStorage.com |
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 Robert C. Abraham, founder and author of Freeman Reports, a tape storage market research and analyst service, died June 18 after an abrupt and painful battle with cancer. He was 67.
"Bob was a quiet, soft-spoken guy with a tremendous understanding of the tape industry," said Diane McAdam, analyst with storage consultancy GlassHouse Technologies Inc. "This is the loss of a great person and a great service."
Freeman Reports was a spin-off from Freeman Associates Inc., a data storage consultancy founded by Raymond Freeman in 1977. Abraham joined Raymond Freeman in the mid-80s as a vice president and in 1999 it decided to spin out the tape research arm as a separate entity run by Abraham.
"Every manufacturer in the business ordered his reports," said Freeman. "He lived up to the high standards we created."
Prior to Freeman Associates, Abraham held management positions in marketing, strategic planning and product planning for Wangtek, Tandon Corp. and Pertec Corp.. He held engineering design and management positions at Pertec, Burroughs Corp. and Conrac Corp. He was granted two patents for his work as a designer.
Abraham graduated from the University of California with a degree in electrical engineering and pursued various post-graduate studies in computer sciences and marketing.
In his spare time he was an avid water-skier and downhill skier, and enjoyed gardening and landscaping.
He is survived by his wife, Joanna Abraham, of Ojai, Calif., and his children Steve Abraham and Bonnie Cobb.
According to Freeman, the reports business will not survive Abraham's loss. "The business was really Bob's," he said.
Previous SearchStorage.com articles on Abraham's tape reports:
Analyst report: Tape libraries slipped in 2006
New report could spell trouble for Quantum
Recent SearchStorage.com articles quoting Abraham:
Sony resellers stick with AIT tape
IBM, Sun tout native tape encryption
Quantum buys ADIC for $770M
Imation readies disk inside tape
Additional reporting by Beth Pariseau, News writer. SearchStorage.com
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