5 Companies That Had A Rough Week

The Week Ending April 3

This week's roundup of companies that had a rough week include continued management turmoil at Citrix, charges of financial improprieties against Polycom's former CEO, the sudden closure of a leading OpenStack startup, the departure of a key channel executive from Microsoft, and an ongoing DDoS attack against a popular developer website.

Citrix's Executive Leadership Turmoil Continues As Two Top Managers Depart

What has been something of a revolving door of top managers at Citrix lately is still spinning with the news this week that two relatively recent hires have left the company. That follows a shake-up earlier this year in Citrix's sales leadership that included the departure of Al Monserrat, senior vice president of worldwide sales and services.

This week, Citrix confirmed that Rakesh Narasimhan left in February due to a personal family situation. He joined Citrix in January 2014 as vice president and general manager of the company's application and desktop virtualization business. Departing in May is Sudhakar Ramakrishna, vice president and general manager of Citrix's Enterprise and Service Provider Division, according to an 8-K filing.

SEC Charges Former Polycom CEO With Misuse Of Corporate Funds, Company Pays $750,000 Fine

The Securities and Exchange Commission this week said it charged Andrew Miller, the former CEO of videoconferencing technology company Polycom, with using nearly $200,000 in corporate funds for personal perks, including meals, entertainment and gifts. The SEC said Miller also used Polycom funds to travel with friends and his girlfriend to "luxurious international resorts" while falsely claiming the trips were for business purposes.

The SEC said it separately charged Polycom for having inadequate internal financial controls and failing to report Miller's spending to investors. Polycom has agreed to pay $750,000 to settle the SEC's charges while the case against Miller, who left the company in 2013, continues in federal court.

OpenStack Startup Nebula Goes Bust

Nebula, the cloud OpenStack appliance developer started by OpenStack founder Chris Kemp, suddenly shut down Wednesday.

"This is a difficult announcement for us to make and we want to assure our customers, shareholders, and employees that we have worked hard to explore alternatives and exhausted all potential options," the company said in a posting on its website.

Nebula, once a rising star that raised $38.5 million in venture funding, offered OpenStack technology that made it possible to build a private computing cloud from hundreds of inexpensive computers. Observers said Nebula's demise could signal a coming consolidation in the OpenStack arena.

GitHub Battling Major DDoS Attack

Code-sharing website GitHub has been fighting off a persistent DDoS (distributed denial of service) cyberattack since last week -- the largest in the site's history, according to the site's operators.

The San Francisco-based website issued a statement earlier this week, saying it believed the attack was an attempt to get the site to "remove a specific class of content." The Wall Street Journal reported that the attack was likely an attempt by China to shut down GitHub's anticensorship tools, and the DDoS traffic was coming from Chinese search engine Baidu.

Veteran Microsoft Channel Executive Set To Depart

CRN learned this week that Jenni Flinders, vice president of Microsoft's U.S. Partner Group, is leaving the company after 15 years. It wasn't clear why Flinders is leaving or where she's headed next. Microsoft would only say it's actively searching for her replacement.

In CRN's story, several channel partners portrayed Flinders' departure as a loss for the software company, saying she had been instrumental in helping Microsoft partners move to the cloud. She also was praised for promoting diversity at the company and within the channel.