Report: Cisco Computing Systems Unit in Management Shakeup

Paul Perez, Cisco (CSCO) Computing Systems Product Group vice president and general manager, reportedly left the company last month, in a move reported by NetworkWorld and subsequently confirmed by the vendor.

Satinder Sethi, UCS Product Management & Solutions vice president, has replaced Perez, ostensibly in an interim capacity, with a search in progress for a permanent replacement, the report said.

Perez’s responsibilities included Cisco’s UCS server portfolio, the UCS Central and Cloupia portfolio and the partner ecosystems for the vendor’s Data Center Group. Perez, who also served as Cisco’s Data Center Group chief technology officer (CTO), had a 27-year tenure at Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) before joining Cisco in 2011. At HP, Perez was CTO for HP’s ProLiant and BladeSystem lineups and held a similar title for HP’s enterprise storage business.

According to NetworkWorld’s sources, he may be headed to Dell.

In confirming Perez’s exit, a Cisco spokesperson told NetworkWorld the vendor expects to “attract top talent for the role.”

“In just six years, UCS has reached an over $3 billion run rate with more than 41,000 customers,” the spokesperson said. “Eighty-five percent of the Fortune 500 (have) chosen UCS because of its innovative architecture, and last quarter saw a 40 percent growth year-over-year, demonstrating how Cisco’s differentiated approach continues to resonate with customers.”

Researcher IDC placed Cisco fifth in worldwide server revenue for Q4, 2014 and fourth for the full year, behind leader HP, Dell, IBM and Lenovo for the quarterly period and HP, IBM and Dell for the year.

For Q4, 2014, Cisco generated $769.5 million in server revenue worldwide for a 5.3 percent share of the market, or 19.1 percent year-over-year growth, IDC said. For the full year 2014, Cisco accumulated $2.9 billion in server revenue for a 5.7 percent stake in the $50.9 billion global market and 29.9 percent growth from 2013.

NetworkWorld also reported that Raju Datla, Cisco Computing Systems Group vice president and lead for UCS software, including UCS Manager, UCS Central and UCS Director (formerly Cloupia), also left the company this month.

NetworkWorld’s sources said Datla may be launching a new company with Cloupia co-founder Raju Penmetsa, Cisco UCS software chief technology officer and principal engineer.

Cisco did not confirm Datla’s exit, Network World reported.