Carney

Carney, who most recently headed Xsigo Systems and Micromuse, brings with him some experience in selling companies, a factor that likely entered into the company’s decision to hire him, considering its sustained interest in finding a buyer. This past July, Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) bought Xsigo, a network virtualization specialist, and seven years ago IBM (NYSE: IBM) landed Micromuse, a network management software developer, for $865 million. Both deals occurred on Carney’s watch.

David House, Brocade chairman, said Carney will take the company “to the next level,” owing to his “relentless passion for driving innovation and operational excellence. These characteristics, combined with his track record of execution including delivering growth and increasing shareholder value, make him an outstanding choice to lead Brocade into its next phase.”

House credited Klayko with shepherding Brocade’s market gains in storage networking and Ethernet fabrics and building the vendor’s portfolio of networking products.

In addition to his Xsigo and Micromuse stints, Carney’s background also spans tenures as Juniper Networks’ chief operating officer, president of Nortel Networks’ Core IP, Wireless Internet and Enterprise businesses, and executive vice president and general manager of Bay Networks’ Enterprise business unit.

“I believe Brocade is poised to leverage its heritage of strong innovation and significantly disrupt the status quo in the data-networking industry,” said Carney. “There are profound changes happening across high tech today and Brocade has a great opportunity to lead that transformation through differentiated products and customer focus. Success here will accelerate profitable growth for our company and drive further value for our shareholders. I am very excited and honored to lead Brocade at this time.”