Micromuse Nabs HP Exec As Channel Chief

Oberoi, a veteran with more than 20 years of experience in the software industry, will become the company's new executive vice president of global sales and technical services.

Representatives from the San Francisco-based Micromuse said that Oberoi will be responsible for forging and deepening the company's channel partner program. He also will lead Micromuse's field operations in the Americas, Asia Pacific, and in Europe, and will help drive the expansion of the company's global software business.

Oberoi will report to Micromuse Chairman and CEO Lloyd Carney, who said he was excited to welcome Oberoi into the fold.

"[Oberoi] has established a stellar record of building high-performance sales teams, developing high-growth sales operations, and cultivating new markets and sales channels worldwide," Carney said in a prepared statement. "His global perspective and demonstrated leadership abilities are perfectly suited to help us meet our goal of continually evolving and extending Micromuse's industry leading position."

Prior to joining Micromuse, Oberoi held the position of vice president and general manager of corporate accounts and industries at HP Services, where he built a worldwide organization to develop a services-led approach with some of HP's biggest customers. Before that, Oberoi was HP's vice president and general manager of worldwide software sales and marketing, and was responsible for the HP OpenView product portfolio, among others.

News of Oberoi's hire comes after a tumultuous week in which Micromuse announced that it would restate earnings for the last four fiscal years. In a conference call with analysts last week, CFO Mike Luetkemeyer said the firm had identified a number of sketchy accounting practices, and described them as "a small number of discrete and seemingly unrelated accounting entries."

Luetkemeyer declined to give specific examples of the types of accounting errors that occurred, but noted that the errors would not have a material impact on the company's reported revenue or on current cash balances. He blamed the errors on the company's roller-coaster growth and downsizing between 2000 and 2003.