Though Siemens Enterprise confirmed to No Jitter earlier this month the departure of CEO James O'Neill, the company has finally got around to making an official announcement of the previously-reported appointment of Gores Group exec Mark Stone as the new CEO.Here's the key quote from the press release:
The Gores Group is a very active owner and sees significant opportunities present in the market downturn and with recent competitive dislocations. "I think it critical to be as close to the organization and customers as possible to ensure strong execution and delivery," said Mark Stone. "Gores and I will be very active in SEN for the full tenure of our ownership."
Why now? It seems Siemens Enterprise is using the release of some favorable market share data from Infonetics Research as the means to slip this announcement in. The release praises Gores' active oversight, claiming, "This attention and commitment is already paying dividends," with Siemens being the only vendor in Infonetics' study to gain market share in 2009. Given that all or almost all of that period took place under O'Neill's leadership, it's hard to know what to make of that statement.
And what, if anything, might these entrails reveal about the impending Nortel Enterprise sale? Is Siemens' trumpeting of one research firm's numbers on market share a way of saying, "Hey, we don't need Nortel, we're gaining share anyway," preparatory to some impending announcement of Avaya beating Siemens out in the contest for Nortel? Certainly most of the world seems convinced that Avaya is about to seal the deal--though that's been the rumor for weeks now, so who knows?
If Siemens does lose out to Avaya in the Nortel derby, its adherents might want to look to this perspective from Jeff Kane, president of NEC Unified. In many ways, NEC could be seen as an APAC version of Siemens--powerful in its home markets and other global areas, more niche-y in North America. NEC has shown zero interest in Nortel, and Jeff Kane's thoughts help explain why.
