Mickos Out as HP Cloud Boss, Trio of Execs to Lead Unit
In September, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) plunked down a reported $100 million to buy cloud open source software provider Eucalyptus, and promptly installed Marten Mickos, the developer’s highly regarded chief executive, to head its Cloud business as senior vice president and general manager.
Mickos’ job, in a nutshell, was to build out HP’s Helion OpenStack-based portfolio to boost the vendor’s overall cloud service business.
Well, as some observers surmised when the deal initially went down, that didn’t last long. According to a Gigaom report based on a leaked internal email message, Mickos is out as HP’s Cloud business head, replaced by a triumvirate of senior-level executives—Bill Hilf, who will assume product strategy responsibilities; Kerry Bailey, who will lead sales; and Mark Interrante, who will head engineering. All three executives will report to HP chief technology officer Martin Fink.
Ning Wang, former Eucalyptus chief financial officer (CFO) who subsequently joined HP, will leave her cloud operations post for another, undetermined role, the report said.
Mickos new role will be to concentrate on “customer engagement and advocacy and the different communities required to accelerate HP’s progress,” according to the email, which a number of news outlets viewed.
“As we look at both the short and long term strategic direction of our business, the time is now to open up some additional bandwidth at the leadership level to focus on placing some longer term bets,” Mickos said in the email.
“My personal passion is identifying disruptive companies that transform the technology landscape,” he wrote. “I’ll be playing a key role in a new HP initiative currently under development to reach and support those companies.”
In January, Mickos’ name appeared on HP chief executive Meg Whitman’s list of leaders slated to take command as HP Enterprise Helion and cloud organization head once the vendor splits into two publicly held companies. The cloud unit reorganization comes less than a half year after Mickos joined HP, following a four-year tenure as Eucalyptus chief and an eight-year stint as MySQL boss.
HP’s Eucalyptus purchase puzzled more than a few observers. The company produces open source software for cloud environments compatible with Amazon Web Services (AWS), but HP’s Helion portfolio is founded on its own software and OpenStack. And, prior to buying Eucalyptus, HP dropped AWS API support from its public cloud.
