Storage vendor, Network Appliance, has appointed Charlie Trentacosti as general manager and vice president for NetApp Asia Pacific and Japan. Trentacosti will be responsible for directing all NetApp sales and business development activity across the Asia Pacific region, including the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), Australia, Greater China, India, Japan, South Korea, and New Zealand. Trentacosti joined NetApp from Hewlett Packard, where he held senior management positions over his 22-year career, including three years as the general manager for HP’s Asia Pacific Storage Operations.

Technology management professional Lloyd Borrett has founded his first IT services company, after a 12 year management and marketing career at some of Australia's more innovative IT companies. Borrett's career includes a three year stint in the dual role of marketing manager and IT manager at publicly listed IT services group, Oakton, as well as four years as marketing manager and general manager at Infosys Australia forerunner Expert Information Systems. He also performed stints as marketing manager at Protech Australia, Monash.Net and, most recently, ITR Group. His new company Chaordent is described as a is a business, sales, marketing and technology services company.

US-based messaging security vendor, CipherTrust, has appointed Tom Chin as its new vice president and general manager of the Asia Pacific territory. A former Network Appliance executive and 20-year technology and sales veteran, Chin was most recently the vice president of Asia Pacific for Network Appliance, which included Greater China, Korea, Southeast Asia, India, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. Prior to joining Network Appliance, Chin served as senior director of sales-Asia Pacific for Adaptec Corporation.  Previously, he served as vice president of sales at ETEQ Microsystems, and also worked for Wang Laboratories, Pacific Micro Marketing, and CFH Associates. Chin will be based in Hong Kong.

Linux vendor, Red Hat has appointed Martin Zierer to its Australian and New Zealand team as a solution architect. Prior to Red Hat, Zierer was a solution specialist and strategic relationship manager at Intel Australia.  At Intel, Zierer was a key contributor to the first production deployments of Oracle 9i RAC on Linux in Australia, the teraflop cluster installation on Dell/Linux at AC3 in Sydney and the first 64-bit Itanium data warehousing solution for a financial institution in Melbourne.  Before that, he was a senior technical consultant at Intel Solution Services and the team leader databases for Cable and Wireless Deutschland, both in Munich, Germany.

IBM has appointed Glen Boreham, CEO and managing director of IBM Australia & New Zealand. He replaces Philip Bullock, who has been promoted to head IBM's hardware business across the Asia Pacific region, based in Shanghai, after five years in his current role. Mr Boreham is currently managing director for IBM's business relationship with Telstra. Both appointments are effective immediately, with plans in place to ensure a smooth transition.

Information management solutions provider, Softlink, has appointed Paul Watts, a 30 year software professional, to head the company's sales and marketing division for Asia Pacific. Watts joins Softlink from Markinson Business Solutions where he was a former managing director and national sales director. He is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Management and was recently recognised by the ACS as the 2005 ICT Professional of the Year (ICT Industry).

Wireless messaging developer, Infostream, has appointed Jim Christie as general manager of its Infostream Professional Services Group, based in Sydney. Dr Christie joins Infostream after a career at Aprisma Management Technologies where he was managing director for the company's Asia Pacific operations.  Earlier in his career, Dr Christie held a number of sales, marketing and general management roles including senior vice president for Sanyo Icon, division manager for EMC and vice president, worldwide marketing for MAI Basic Four.  Dr Christie also had his own systems integration and network consulting company in California.

Konica Minolta Australia has appointed Paul Dutch to the position of national dealer manager, Australia, based at the company's North Ryde head office. He will report to Frank Mellish, general manager, sales and marketing. Mr Dutch joined Konica Minolta in 1994 and, prior to being promoted to the new role, he was sales manager for the Adelaide branch.

Business Intelligence and interoperability specialist, Information Builders, has appointed Andrew Johnson as a senior sales executive based in its Melbourne office. With more than 30 years experience in the software industry, Mr Johnson has worked with Oracle, Intentia and Axs-One (formerly Computron). He also has extensive experience with the UK Government as a thought leader for the development of their e-commerce initiatives.