The high-level exodus of BEA Systems' executives
continues, with chief marketing officer Tod Nielsen exiting this
week.
His departure follows the exits of chief technical officer Scott
Ditezen two weeks ago, and chief architect Adam Bosworth in
July.
Bosworth joined Google and Ditezen, like Nielsen departed "to
pursue other interests", according to BEA.
Marketing executive Rick Jackson, also went two weeks ago, to
Borland.
Despite these high-profile exits from the company, BEA’s Kevin
Faulkner, vice-president of investor relations, remains adamant
that the company is on the right footing, noting that its positive
cash flow in the first half of this year was $137m (£76.3m), as
opposed to $88m in the first half of last year.
"We have a lot of good people here working on our product vision
[who] think that focus is something important - and focus is
something that our customers want to see," Faulkner said.
Asked why there have been so many departures, Faulkner said
officials who left had different priorities than those set for the
company at a recent product leadership team meeting.
Additionally, the company revealed in May that Alan Fudge,
senior vice-resident of sales for the Americas, had left the
company, and Olivier Helleboid, executive vice-resident in charge
of BEA's product group, had been moved to a new role directing
BEA's long-term strategy.
Despite BEA’s own positive prognosis, one observer did not
believe the exits bode well for the company.
Shawn Willett, principal analyst at Current Analysis said, "The
company's financials are not bad right now, and do not warrant any
kind of mass exodus.
"The company's core market, application severs, [is] just
stagnating, and the new areas it is delving into have not yet borne
fruit in terms of high growth.
"My guess is that there is a convergence of factors: stagnant
growth, personal reasons, management changes that some do not like.
The net effect is that it does not look good right now," Willett
said.
Paul Krill writes for Infoworld