Sun's Global Sales, Services Head Moves To HP

Don Grantham, a nine-year Sun veteran who headed global sales and services at the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company for the past three years, was replaced by Peter Ryan as executive vice president of Sun's Global Sales and Services organization, Sun said Monday.

Grantham left Sun to take a new position at Hewlett-Packard, Palo Alto, Calif.

Sun officials were not available to comment on the changes. However, Jonathan Schwartz, Sun president and CEO, wrote in a blog Monday that, "Don's leaving Sun to help HP secure a Solaris license before their EDS transaction closes." HP said last month that it plans to acquire systems integrator giant EDS, Plano, Tex., in a bid to boost its fortunes in the global services arena.

Ryan joined Sun in June of 2006 as senior vice president of global sales and services for Sun's Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) territories. A year later, he was appointed senior vice president of global sales for the Americas region.

Ryan is being replaced by Cheryl Cook, who starting July 1 will be promoted to senior vice president of the North America sales region.

Sun has also formed a new Emerging Markets sales geography to focus on driving sales in South and Eastern Europe, Latin America, India, and China. That organization is headed by Denis Heraud, Sun's senior vice president of Asia Pacific, who reports to Ryan.

The move comes as the market for network computing infrastructure and the digital content it serves starts to become more and more focused in emerging economies such those of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and Africa, Schwartz wrote in his blog.

"The infrastructure to distribute and manipulate that content (eg, servers, networking, storage and infrastructure software) is increasingly geared to serve consumers " the 'business to consumer' (or, B2C) segment of the IT marketplace is growing far, far faster than 'business to business'(B2B)," he wrote.

By definition, those markets are centered in emerging economies because that is where over half the world's population lives, Schwartz wrote. "If B2B caused the IT industry to concentrate in proximity to economic centers (the G7), B2C focuses our attention on consumers and population center (the P7?). That's a profound change."

Dave Condensa, president of the western region of Incentra Solutions, a Boulder, Colo.-based solution provider, managed services provider, and Sun partner, said that he sees no major changes for the channel as a result of the executive and geographic shuffles.

Grantham also came to Sun from EMEA, and so Ryan's move really means little difference to the channel, said Condensa, a former co-chairman of Sun's partner advisory council.

"Peter's been out here in the U.S. getting his hands dirty here," he said. "He's had time to understand the U.S. market and our issues."

Grantham's departure will be somewhat of a blow to Sun, Condensa said. "Don Grantham came in at a real tough time for Sun," he said. "But he got it turned around. In the last 18 months, I've seen Sun shift back to being more channel-friendly."