John McHugh, the HP veteran who built ProCurve into a major force in the switching market before decamping for Nortel, has taken a job with Brocade, which like Nortel before it is trying to make headway in the battle for second-tier leadership behind the dominant Cisco.The move will bolster Brocade's efforts to maximize its acquisition of Foundry Networks, but will most likely be a blow to Avaya, which has been adamant about its intention to retain the Nortel data product lines post-merger. McHugh's high profile and track record would have been a boon to those efforts.
McHugh represents something of an exception when it comes to top Nortel executives making the transition to Avaya. Many of the top Nortel execs have settled into new roles with the acquirer, including Joel Hackney, the former head of Nortel Enterprise Solutions, who now runs Avaya's federal systems unit; others moving over to the new company included Phil Edholm, David Downing and Wes Durow.
