Premises Networks: People and Places, 5-17-99
A roundup of personnel changes, company relocations, and other items of interest in the premises networks industry.
Thomas Berger has joined Octave Communications Inc. (Salem, NH), a developer of collaborative web-based telephony applications, as the new president and CEO. Berger will assume the daily operations of the company. Prior president and CEO, Robert Scott, will now serve as founder and chairman of the board. Prior to joining Octave, Berger was the president and COO of Celcore Inc., a privately held cellular infrastructure system supplier, that was purchased in December 1997 by DSC Communications of Plano, TX...
Iridium LLC (Washington, D.C.) has promoted Leo Mondale, an Iridium senior vice president, to chief financial executive. Mondale will take overall responsibility for all financial matters. He will also continue in his strategic planning and business development role, and will report directly to John Richardson, the interim chief executive officer of Iridium. In addition, Sue Kennedy has been named vice president of marketing and sales...
Mike Silvey has joined London-based network management software vendor RiverSoft Ltd. as vice president of marketing. Although Silvey joins the company from Cap Gemini, an European IT services firm, he is better known as the ex-senior vice-president of marketing for Micromuse (San Francisco)...
EdgeMail Technologies Inc. (Bakersfield, CA) has received first round venture capital funding from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, a Redwood City, CA-based venture capital investment firm and Wasatch Venture Fund, a Salt Lake City venture capital investment firm. The investments will be used to continue EdgeMail's expansion into Web-based, enterprise-class secure communication products...
Canada's largest telecommunications company, Nortel Networks (Brampton, ON), is divesting, consolidating, and realigning operations. The moves come after the multibillion-dollar purchase of Bay Networks last fall, a Santa Clara, CA -based networking company. Nortel said that it will contract out all but its most complex printed circuit board assembly, most of its electromechanical subsystems manufacturing, and a significant part of its repair business.
The company expects that approximately 4,000 employees will be affected. About 3,000 workers are expected to be hired by the contract manufacturers who buy the divested plants, while 1,000 jobs will be cut. Layoffs are expected to be minimal because of normal attrition, retirement, and relocation of employees to other Nortel plants...
WorldPort Communications Inc. (San Diego) announced that its executive vice president, Daniel Lazarek, has been elected to serve on the Telecommunications Resellers Association (TRA) Board of Directors. TRA members engage in the resale of telecommunications services. These firms range from emerging, high-growth companies to well-established, multimillion-dollar enterprises, including AT&T (New York), MCI Worldcom (Jackson, MS), and Sprint (Kansas City, MO). Together, they provide services to millions of residential and business customers worldwide.