Novell Reorganizes Leadership Of Two Divisions
Van Kemmel, president of Novell's EMEA division since 2002, now will set the unit's strategy, particularly in developing its relationship with government institutions and large system integrators overseas.
Seibt, former CEO of SUSE Linux and president of Novell's SUSE Linux business unit, will be responsible for all day-to-day operations of the division.
"Novell is very fortunate to have two strong leaders to guide [its] growth in EMEA as we transition into the Linux market," said Jack Messman, Novell chairman and CEO.
In the United States, Rex will assume one of the top leadership positions in the SUSE business unit. Formerly SUSE's vice president of research and development, Rex now will lead the development of SUSE Linux and will work with other Novell business units to deliver a complete Linux solution stack. He will report to Chris Stone, Novell vice chairman, Office of the CEO.
According to Stone, Rex also will assume responsibility for Novell's Linux desktop activities. Stone said that some of the company's immediate goals in this area were "melding Novell's enterprise-class networking solutions, technical support, training and consulting services with the open-source expertise of SUSE Linux."
Rex joined SUSE in February 1999 as an engineer and became the company's head of development four months later. As vice president of research and development, he oversaw SUSE's growth from 15 engineers to more than 165--one of the largest open-source development teams in the world.
Novell completed its acquisition of SUSE last month.