Quest Software Makes Karabatsos Channel Chief In Wake Of Channel Veteran Peter Koliopoulos' Departure

Quest Software has made George Karabatsos, a sales and distribution executive who came to the IT management software firm when it was sold by Dell, its channel chief.

Karabatsos replaces Peter Koliopoulos, who left Quest earlier this month, a company spokesman confirmed. The spokesman wouldn't discuss where Koliopoulos had gone. He held the vice president global channels and alliances position for less than a year.

Koliopoulos is a channel veteran credited with helping to establish EMC Corp.'s channel operation as it transitioned from a direct sales model. He was at the data storage giant between 2006 and 2011 before becoming vice president of global partner marketing at EMC's VCE unit.

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Jamie Shepard, senior vice president at Dallas, Texas, solution provider Lumenate, said Koliopoulos has played an important part in the development of the modern channel.

"When EMC channel started around 2005, 2006, he was really instrumental in helping to define the channel," Shepard said. "Pete is a forward thinker. His channel strategy and the whole way he went to market, he really understood us, he understood customer challenges and was really good at aligning that with where he wanted to go."

Before taking the job at Dell Software last April, Koliopoulos spent about four years as vice president of marketing at Arrow Enterprise Computing Solutions North America.

Karabatsos joined Dell last June as director of global distributor sales and transitioned to Quest when Dell sold its software unit, which included Quest and SonicWall, to Francisco Partners and the private equity arm of hedge fund Elliott Management last November.

Dell bought Quest for about $2.4 billion in 2012 and put it and other assets on the block after it cemented its agreement to acquire EMC. The sales helped offset the cost of the $58 billion acquisition and also reduced duplication of technologies gained in the acquisition.

After Dell and Quest had parted ways, the two firms did not establish a two-tier reselling relationship, meaning partners that were previously able to sell Quest software as part of their Dell line cards would have to join Quest's channel program to continue that relationship.

Before his stint at Dell, Karabatsos held sales executive positions at Nexsan and Brocade. He was also a principal and managing director of consulting firm Karabatsos LLC between 2011 and 2013. Karabatsos was not available for comment Tuesday.