Quantum Names New CEO, As Belluzzo Moves To Executive Chairman

Gacek joined Quantum in August 2006 when Quantum acquired tape vendor and deduplication developer ADIC. Gacek was CFO at ADIC for seven years, a position he held at Quantum after the acquisition until January of this year when he was appointed president and COO.

Belluzzo, the former Microsoft president and COO who took over as Quantum CEO in 2002, will continue as Quantum chairman and will also take the newly-formed position of executive chairman.

Gacek told CRN that Quantum will continue to focus on building its indirect sales channel which currently accounts for over 90 percent of the company's branded sales revenue.

Leveraging the channel is the only way for Quantum to grow, Gacek said. "It was clear as we drive for more technology leadership that we get traction with the channel," he said. "We're focusing on bringing more technical resources to the channel, and working on our sales side as well with increased roadmap information, competitive data, and other information needed to grow the business."

Quantum channel partners said the vendor's channel business went through some rough waters over the past few years, but things have been getting better.

Gacek agreed there was some channel disruption, and cited Quantum's acquisition of ADIC and the merger of different channel programs as one cause. The rise of deduplication vendor Data Domain, with its message to customers to take tape out of their storage infrastructures, was another. He also said EMC's previous deal to resell Quantum's deduplication products was also an issue.

Quantum is also looking strong in terms of products, Gacek said.

On the tape side, the technology is mature but there are opportunities for Quantum in terms of channel disruption thanks to Oracle's acquisition of Sun, which also includes Sun's StorageTek tape business, he said.

On the dedupe side, Quantum just introduced version 2.0 of its DXi software which includes in-line processing that takes advantage of increasing processor performance, thereby making it more competitive with technology from market leader Data Domain, he said.

Quantum also just released version 4.0 of its StorNext Storage Manager software for file sharing and archiving in heterogeneous storage environments, he said.

John Zammett, president of HorizonTek, a Huntington, N.Y.-based solution provider and channel partner of both Quantum and, in the past, ADIC, said ADIC was one of the best companies in the tape industry.

"It's nice to see one of (ADIC's) own take over Quantum," Zammett said. "It's good news for the company."