People and Places

Robert Tonti has joined Altiga Networks as VP of sales. Tonti will be responsible for building a sales team and establishing partnerships to sell Altiga's VPN Concentrator series, a broadband-enabled virtual private network solution scheduled for release in the first quarter of 1999.

Kumar Malavalli, VP of technology at Brocade, has been named chairman the Technical Committee T11, a standards committees for Fibre Channel technology and part of the National Committee for Information Technology Standards. The T11 committee is developing standards for interfaces and topology crucial to high-performance connectivity in Storage Area Networks.

Sheldon S. Ohringer, former president of ICG Telecom Group Inc., has joined FirstWorld Communications as president and CEO.

Shomiti Systems has promoted Michael Coogan to serve as VP of sales. Shomiti specializes in silicon-accelerated local-area network management products.

Steve Visconti has joined Nuera Communications Inc., a developer of IP telephony gateways and voice over frame relay access devices, as VP of sales.

Remote access products provider Perle Systems Ltd. has announced the appointment of Jerrold Kollmann to VP and general manager of Perle's international division, which covers Asia-Pacific, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America, and the Caribbean.