Overland Storage Hires New Channel Chief
George Karabatsos, formerly the vice president of reseller channel sales and marketing of StorageTek, joined San Diego-based Overland on Monday, said Overland President and CEO Christopher Calisi.
Karabatsos, who joins Overland as its vice president of worldwide sales, replaces Chet Baffa, who retired from Overland in the second quarter.
Karabatsos will oversee Overland's global sales efforts and strengthen its channel relationships, said Calisi. "At StorageTek, he was responsible for building their channel on the disk side and the tape automation side," he said.
The hiring of Karabatsos comes on the heels of Overland's disclosure that its OEM relationship with Hewlett-Packard is ending. That relationship accounts for more than more than 50 percent of Overland's revenue, according to the company.
Overland earlier this week also said it is acquiring Zetta Technologies, a developer of software used to build enterprise-class primary storage arrays, a move Calisi said would further solidify his company's channel business. "The channel is most important to us," he said. "It's been our growth driver, and will be going forward."