HP Hires EMC Storage Chief

After losing several top executives to EMC, Hewlett-Packard finally got one in return, snapping up EMC's David Donatelli to serve as its executive vice president for Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking.

Donatelli was most recently president of EMC's Storage division, where he was responsible for the EMC storage platforms and related software businesses.

HP said the appointment of Donatelli is effective May 5, coinciding with a restructuring of its hardware business, which includes combining its ProCurve networking business into the same organization as servers and storage.

In response, EMC said on Tuesday that it has appointed Frank Hauck, executive vice president and an 18-year EMC veteran, as the interim leader of the company's storage division.

Donatelli will take control of HP's Enterprise Storage and Server (ESS) business unit, which had fiscal year 2008 revenue of $19.4 billion. The business unit includes HP's Business Critical Systems, Industry Standard Servers, StorageWorks and ESS Infrastructure.

Donatelli will report to Ann Livermore, executive vice president of HP's Technology Solutions Group.

Donatelli is replacing Scott Stallard, a 34-year HP veteran, who is planning to retire, HP said.

The combining of HP's server, storage, and networking businesses into a single business unit comes as the IT space is looking at ways to converge the three.

That convergence trend includes Cisco's March unveiling of its Unified Computing System strategy, which seeks to combine compute, storage, virtualization and networking capabilities in an integrated package that the company said will make data centers more flexible, efficient and cost-effective.

"David is an experienced business executive with a track record of driving growth and innovation," said Livermore in a statement. "I look forward to what the team will accomplish under his strategic leadership."

EMC has raided HP's executive team several times in the past.

Mark Lewis, president of EMC's Content Management and Archiving Division, had served as vice president of worldwide marketing and solutions at HP's Network Storage Solutions group until he was hired by EMC in 2002.

A year later, he was followed by Howard Elias, HP's former senior vice president of business management and operations. Elias currently serves as president of EMC's Global Services & Resource Management Software group.

Hauck has held a number of senior leadership roles at EMC, including CIO, executive vice president of global marketing and customer quality, and head of worldwide sales and services.

"We're extremely fortunate to have a seasoned leader with Frank's credentials, industry track record and companywide respect to lead EMC's storage business," said Joe Tucci, EMC chairman, president and CEO, in a statement. "Frank's extensive knowledge of EMC's information infrastructure business, his longstanding relationships with our customers and his focus on operational excellence are great advantages for EMC."