Messman out, Hovsepian in at Novell

Stan Beer
Thursday, 22 June 2006 20:42

IT Industry - Strategy

Linux vendor Novell, has terminated the leadership of Jack Messman and appointed the much younger Ron Hovspepian as the company's new CEO. Messman, 66, has been under fire for some time over its failure to capture market share from Red Hat in the Linux space. Hovsepian, who also has been elected to the Board of Directors, is 45 and has been president and chief operating officer since October 2005.
Novell's Board of Directors said in a statement that it had decided that Messman and former CFO Joseph S. Tibbetts, Jr., 53, will leave Novell effective June 21. Messman will remain on Novell's Board of Directors until Oct 31, 2006. Dana C. Russell, 44, Novell's current vice president of finance and corporate controller, has been appointed interim CFO while the company conducts a search for a permanent replacement.

Newly elected non-executive chairman, Thomas G. Plaskett stated: "The Board concluded that a management change would be the best way to accelerate the execution of our growth strategy and build value for shareholders. Ron is the ideal choice to lead the company as we continue with our transition to Linux-based products and identity and resource management and leverage our unique support of mixed source environments. He is a talented and proven executive with deep knowledge and expertise in the infrastructure software business and the enterprise market. Following his 17 year career at IBM and other industry experiences, Ron has rapidly progressed through top positions at Novell over the past three years. He has played an integral role in developing the company's operating strategy and fully understands Novell's compelling growth opportunities. He has forged close relationships with key customers and is highly regarded by the Board and employees throughout our organization."

Commenting on these changes, Plaskett stated: "The Board is grateful for Jack's and Joe's service to the company. Jack has been a director since the company's founding, and he and Joe helped lead Novell through a period of dramatic change in the software and information technology sectors. In particular, the company's decision under Jack's leadership to adopt an open source-based strategy put Novell at the center of one of the most significant computing developments in the last decade. We wish them further success in their future endeavors."

What Plaskett didn't state, however, is that Novell has got the job ahead of it to turn things around at the floundering company. At the end of this month, Novell is due to release its long awaited Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop product, which the company has promised will herald a new era of desktop Linux.