HP nabbed Bill Veghte, 42, as its new Executive Vice President of the Software and Solutions Business. This is a significant win for HP. Veghte is a 19-year Microsoft veteran and served as president of the company's $15 billion Windows Business.
It's possible that changes at Microsoft influenced his decision. In January, Stephen Sinofsky took over as President of Microsoft's Windows division. Veghte replaces Tom Hogan, 49, who was promoted to run sales, strategy, marketing and operations for the $54 billion Software and Solutions division.
HP also set its sights on VMware's executive suite. HP's latest exec comes from the rival company. Richard T. Geraffo, Jr. gave up his Vice President and General Manager position at VMware to serve as Senior Vice President and Managing Director for the Americas at HP. Geraffo replaces Tom Iannotti, who was recently chosen to lead HP Enterprise Services.
By hiring away a top U.S. executive in Geraffo, HP is throwing down the gauntlet in the battle against the recently formed VMware-Cisco-EMC (VCE) alliance that competes with HP to build data center infrastructures and compute clouds. During his tenure at VMware, Geraffo led a number of field functions. He brings more than 20 years of IT industry experience to HP, including previous leadership positions at BEA and IBM.
Geraffo brings critical insider knowledge of the VCE's technical and sales pain points. But he's also a strong channel booster who will help drive increased virtualization and cloud channel sales for HP channel partners.
