* Goodbye Bergevine, goodbye Seibt
Don’t stand too close to the exit door at Novell’s headquarters because it’s revolving faster than ever as executives jump ship – or get pushed overboard.
I didn’t note in this newsletter that former Marketing Vice President Debra Bergevine left a few weeks ago, although that was definitely foreshadowed when new Marketing Vice President Bill Hewitt came aboard in March – and Bergevine was reassigned to “unspecified duties.” I did say nice things about Bergevine a couple of years ago (“Novell scores with latest ad campaign” http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/netware/2003/0203nw1.html)
Now Richard Seibt, who headed up Novell’s Europe, Middle East and Africa operations, is gone. Since the press release announcing Seibt’s departure included the kiss-of-death phrase “We wish him well in his future endeavors,” I don’t think it was a voluntary (or mutual) decision on his part.
Seibt was chairman and CEO of SuSE Linux at the time Novell acquired the company, but his association with the German firm was fairly short-lived. He’d joined SuSE in the head-man jobs in early 2003 after spending 20 years at IBM. Less than a year later, it was announced that Novell was buying SuSE. There has been some speculation that Seibt was brought in specifically to sell the company, but that would have probably been better attributed to his predecessor, Gerhard Burtscher, who is known as a turn-around specialist.
I never spoke to Seibt, never met him and – really – never paid any attention to him in his almost 18 months at Novell. His short tenure at SuSE should also mean that the Linux fans won’t be particularly upset by his departure. Still, it’s one more Novell exec out in the door and there do appear to have been far too many of those this year.
