Author: Oxfordadmin@878

Will Knight, a former 15-year Microsoft (MSFT) veteran, is Rackspace Hosting’s (RAX) new channel sales head, charged with building strategic partner relationships and sprinkling the program with incentives to improve profitability and sales.

Knight’s role is to show Rackspace’s partners how to make more money by simplifying the program and clarifying how to best engage with the vendor to maximize the relationship. He’s no newbie to channel- and customer-facing positions, commanding some 20 years of experience in IT, sales, marketing and channel strategy roles, most recently as Microsoft’s Asia Pacific SMB business senior director responsible for its partner ecosystem in that region.

Rackspace competes for partners with cloud providers Amazon (AMZN), Google (GOOG) and Microsoft (MSFT) so fine-tuning its channel program is vital.

In a blog post, Knight said he’s “charged with streamlining Rackspace’s partner program to ensure our partners get the most out of it.” He said “2014 is a big year for our Partner Network as we sharpen our partners’ expertise in the hybrid cloud to assist them in becoming cloud specialists.”

Knight said Rackspace is eager to adjust its program to the needs of its channel partners, tailoring its offerings to partners’ specific business models both with financial incentives and other benefits.

“Our enhanced Partner Network means that our partners choose the activities that are the best fit for their specific needs,” he wrote. “It also means they’re rewarded more easily for their efforts.”

In particular, Rackspace plans to offer partners a specialization program surrounding OpenStack, the hybrid cloud and managed virtualization and specific workloads such as ecommerce, web content management and mobility, Knight said. In fact, Knight told Talkin’Cloud in an interview that Rackspace will be actively recruiting partners whose strengths lie in those specialties.

“As specialists ourselves, Rackspace can support partners through technology shifts and changes,” he wrote. “This means they focus less on their infrastructure and the technologies involved, and more on the solutions they’re building for their customers. Our partners and their customers want high-performance, low-latency and no-downtime solutions, and we’re here to provide that for them.”

Longtime Microsoft (MSFT) executive Antoine Leblond, a 25-year company veteran and head of Windows Services, said he will exit after March 31, to “go out and see what the non-Microsoft world has to offer,” as he told colleagues in an email.

Leblond spent 20 years in Microsoft’s Office unit, mostly working with ex-Windows boss and former star Steven Sinofsky, who was unceremoniously shown the door in November 2012, less than a month after shepherding the company’s momentous Windows 8 launch. Leblond’s departure comes only two days before the start of Microsoft’s Build 2014 conference, where he previously has presented to attending developers.

It also follows the earlier exits of two other veteran execs, Jon DeVaan and Windows testing head Grant George, both of whose fortunes waned when the company shuffled management last year. All three executives noticeably were not included on the leadership list resulting from the One Microsoft reorganization last year, which left Terry Myerson in charge of Windows.

“Every single day I have had here has been amazing in its own way, and I will never look back on all of these years with anything but fondness, pride in what we’ve accomplished together, and a real appreciation for having been lucky enough to be part of so many awesome things,” Leblond said, as reported by Re/code. “I am sad to leave all of you, but also incredibly excited for what comes next.”

Leblond’s leaving closely follows word of the impending departures of Business Development and Evangelism Executive Vice President Tony Bates and Marketing Executive Vice President Tami Reller, and a move by 20-year company veteran Julie Larson-Green from Devices head to chief experience officer (CXO) in executive vice president Qi Lu’s Applications and Services Engineering Group, ostensibly to make room for incoming Nokia (NOK) chief Stephen Elop.

Larson-Green, who was passed over when Myerson was promoted to Windows head last July, earlier had taken over Windows software and hardware engineering in the wake of Sinofsky’s removal.

At the time of George’s and DeVaan’s leaving, some inside the Windows unit criticized Microsoft for shelving two experienced executives who could have helped Myerson make the new organization work. Now with Leblond’s exit, the post-Sinofsky makeover is complete.

Symantec’s (SYMC) board of directors abruptly ousted President and Chief Executive Steve Bennett, whose tenure at the security company’s helm lasted a short but eventful 20 months, replacing him on an interim basis with board member Michael Brown, a former Quantum (QTM) boss.

Bennett, who took previous chief Enrique Salem’s job in July 2012, vowed to streamline operations, prune midmanagement’s ranks and reframe the company around a more succinct mobility and security lineup. He apparently took the hit for Symantec’s sliding revenue, sagging share price and sluggish delivery of new products. In addition to handing over his titles, Bennett also resigned his position on the board.

As a side note, Salem now is a member of Symantec rival FireEye’s (FEYE) board of directors. FireEye is among a growing number of younger security vendors challenging Symantec’s conventional approach, aiming instead at intrusion detection and prevention.

Symantec said it has appointed a special committee of the board to collaborate with an executive search firm to find Bennett’s successor.

Board chairman Daniel Schulman said Bennett’s firing did not result from any one event or behavior but stemmed from what he termed “an ongoing deliberative process,” in which he was found lacking on product innovation and growth.

“We recognize Steve’s contributions to Symantec, including developing and leading a series of successful initiatives focused on organizational realignment, cost reduction and process effectiveness,” said Schulman. “These changes have helped establish a solid foundation for Symantec’s future, and we remain committed to our previously announced greater-than 5 percent organic revenue growth and better-than 30 percent non-GAAP operating margin targets by FY17.”

Symantec’s revenue fell 4.8 percent to $1.7 billion for the quarter ending Dec. 27. In tandem with announcing Bennett’s departure, Symantec said it expects sales in the current quarter will slide from $1.75 billion a year ago to between $1.62 billion and $1.66 billion. GAAP diluted earnings per share are expected between 29 cents and 31 cents, as compared to 27 cents in the year-ago period.

Brown, who joined Symantec’s board in 2005 following the Veritas merger, said he will focus on product innovation and growth.

“With recent key hires, we have a leadership team in place that is capable of accelerating our growth and I look forward to working closely with them to help execute the next phase of the company’s transformation plan,” he said.

“The need for protecting and managing your information has never been stronger, and we must act aggressively to capture a growing share of this market,” Brown said. “By concentrating on product innovation and growth initiatives, we aim to leverage Symantec’s tremendous assets across both consumer and enterprise applications to enhance our position as a market leader.”

On Bennett’s watch, Symantec last April rolled out Symantec 4.0, its new customer-focused sales strategy with an increased emphasis on channel partners. Under the revamped sales model, field reps are incented to work with channel partners with more resources invested in business development activities and enablement.

Justin Moore, Axcient chief executive, defended Bennett’s performance at Symantec’s helm.

“When Bennett announced his vision for Symantec 4.0, which was announced less than a year ago, he made the right choices—for the most part,” Moore said in an email. “Yet, Symantec was already too far behind the cloud/SaaS curve to catch up. A change of this magnitude is impossible in less than three to five years.”

Moore said Symantec’s problems extend beyond Bennett’s control. “Like so many other enterprise software companies, it has struggled to transition to the enterprise cloud world proving that it is indeed a systemic issue that goes far beyond Bennett’s control.”

Aruba Networks (ARUN) has named former Avaya channel exec Karl Soderlund to its Worldwide Channels position. The announcement was made at Aruba Atmosphere, the company’s annual partner conference this week in Las Vegas.

As vice president of Worldwide Channels, Soderlund will be responsible for all things channel-related, including recruitment, developing global alliances and managing Aruba’s international distribution structure for partner training, enablement, and pre-sales support, according to the company. He reports to John DiLullo, executive vice president of Worldwide Sales.

Soderlund is a fixture in the channel space, having most recently led Americas channel sales at Avaya. He’s also held channel-related positions at Cisco Systems (CSCO), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Fortinet (FTNT) and Extreme Networks—all similar in the fact they all are networking companies (or, in the case of HP and Fortinet, have a networking bent). To that end, Soderlund should be an excellent fit at Aruba.

DiLullo noted as such in his prepared comments: “[Soderlund’s] broad networking technology experience and proven track record for developing first-rate sales and channel programs, coupled with his passion for motivating teams to deliver best-in-class support and drive sales, will be key assets as we grow our worldwide channel organization.”

It’s unclear whether Jim Harold, Aruba’s vice president of Channels, is still at the company. However, his LinkedIn profile hasn’t changed—a good sign. I’m totally speculating (until I get confirmation) that if he is still at Aruba, he’ll be reporting to Soderlund.

(Update: Jim Harold is still at Aruba, overseeing North American channels. He does, indeed, report to Soderlund.)

Word has it Soderlund is getting his feet wet in the warm Aruba waters (figuratively, of course) here at Atmosphere. I, too, will be wading in and hopefully will get the chance to sit down with Soderlund and talk shop.

Four months after departing Microsoft (MSFT), former channel chief Jon Roskill now is at the helm of Acumatica, a 7-year-old, cloud-based ERP specialist focused on SMBs.

Roskill, a 20-year, high-profile Microsoft channel veteran, takes Acumatica’s top spot immediately from outgoing chief executive Yury Larichev. He said the ERP market’s potential and Acumatica’s commitment to sell exclusively through the channel attracted him to the position.

Privately held Acumatica is on a growth spurt, last year posting a 350 percent year-over-year revenue spike, doubling its channel roster to north of 270 partners and landing customers such as e-Recycling and Youngevity, according to the company.

Can Roskill position Acumatica to compete with Microsoft and other ERP heavyweights?

“I’m here and I’m ready to make some impact,” he said. “I love being an underdog and taking the bigger guys on. It’s time Acumatica made its stamp on ERP history. Bring it on.”

Roskill pegged the ERP market as a $60 billion opportunity, and said his entry into the segment comes at the right time.

“It’s a market worth $60 billion, so capturing even just 1 percent of that revenue is incredible. It’s time the stodgy, old ERP scene got a shakeup,” he said.

Larichev, who will remain on Acumatica’s board as an advisor, is expected to stay through March to ease Roskill’s transition. “I’m happy to have taken Acumatica this far,” he said. “Since I joined, Acumatica has seen tremendous growth, and this will continue under Jon’s leadership. He is the right person, at the right time, for Acumatica. I’m excited to see him take Acumatica to new heights.”

At Microsoft, Roskill most recently ran the vendor’s Worldwide Partner Group, a unit consisting of some 5,000 employees overseeing a partner network of 640,000 providers. In prior roles, he was responsible for Microsoft’s U.S. Business Operations, Strategy and Marketing, and served as general manager of the Server and Developer Tools Division.

As expected, Microsoft (MSFT) today played the three key pieces in its grand plan, naming 22-year company veteran Satya Nadella as the third chief executive in its 38-year history, shifting board director John Thompson to chairman and sliding Bill Gates to technology advisor.

Microsoft credited Nadella, formerly the company’s Cloud and Enterprise group executive vice president, with leading “major strategy and technical shifts across the company’s portfolio of products and services,” heading its move to the cloud and shepherding significant growth in the vendor’s Server and Tools Business to some $20 billion annually.

In an email to employees, Nadella made it clear where he intends to take the company: “Our industry does not respect tradition—it only respects innovation. This is a critical time for the industry and for Microsoft. Make no mistake, we are headed for greater places—as technology evolves and we evolve with and ahead of it. Our job is to ensure that Microsoft thrives in a mobile and cloud-first world.”

Gates takes the new title of Founder and Technology Advisor, and will focus on the company’s technology and product direction and serve as Nadella’s advisor, a function the new chief reportedly requested as a condition to take the job.

“During this time of transformation, there is no better person to lead Microsoft than Satya Nadella,” said Gates, in a statement. “Satya is a proven leader with hard-core engineering skills, business vision and the ability to bring people together. His vision for how technology will be used and experienced around the world is exactly what Microsoft needs as the company enters its next chapter of expanded product innovation and growth.”

Outgoing boss Steve Ballmer, who retains a board seat in the shuffle, wrote in an email to employees posted on the vendor’s website: “Satya is a proven leader. He’s got strong technical skills and great business insights. He has a remarkable ability to see what’s going on in the market, to sense opportunity, and to really understand how we come together at Microsoft to execute against those opportunities in a collaborative way.”

Thompson, the former Symantec (SYMC) chief and IBM (IBM) top executive, who’s held a seat on Microsoft’s board for two years, was said to be reluctant to take the chairman’s slot. But some viewed the move as important to the company’s establishing new leadership under Nadella’s command.

“Satya is clearly the best person to lead Microsoft, and he has the unanimous support of our board,” Thompson said. “The board took the thoughtful approach that our shareholders, customers, partners and employees expected and deserved.”

Ballmer, who has presided over Microsoft since 2000, takes with him a long legacy easily recognizable by a boisterous, unmistakable passion that framed the company’s take-no-prisoners culture. Nadella is said to be a far different personality and it will be interesting to see if his reputation for presenting a calm, considerate and collaborative approach prevails in remodeling the company’s long-entrenched persona.

The knock on Nadella is that he’s never run a company of Microsoft’s size, depth and breadth and it is here where Microsoft may miss Ballmer’s business sense. That Nadella will have Gates nearby to advise him will help, but whether that makes up for his lack of experience in this area remains an open question.