IBM names new server, services execs

The company has also created a new organization to handle processors and some technology licensing, sources said and IBM confirmed.

IBM's microelectronics work, such as building the company's Power5+ processors and the brain for Microsoft's Xbox 360 game console, now is one element of the Technology Collaboration Solutions organization. The group also creates computing systems for outside clients, helps those clients with engineering services, and licenses some intellectual property from IBM's systems group, IBM said.

Adalio Sanchez, who has led IBM's pSeries Unix server group, will become general manager of the Technology Collaboration Solutions work, the sources said. Taking over the pSeries family will be Ross Mauri, who was general manager of on-demand and infrastructure solutions at the Armonk, N.Y., company.

"Under Adalio's leadership, we have an opportunity to accelerate our momentum in everything from consumer electronics to aerospace and defense by aligning these capabilities within a single organization," Bill Zeitler, IBM server group senior vice president, said in a memo to employees.

Sanchez has overseen the resurgent Unix server line at IBM, once in third place to Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard but now vying for first place for revenue. And the mainframe division, another IBM server business that recovered from a faltering position in recent years, also is changing.

Erich Clementi led IBM's mainframe division in recent years, but now he's taking over as general manager of IBM's business transformation outsourcing work. It's a part of IBM Global Services and an area the company is betting will be big as customers look to hire others to handle back-office tasks such as human resources or finances.

Placing Sanchez and Clementi in the new positions will help IBM pursue those business areas more aggressively, IBM spokesman Ian Colley said. "We haven't had a single person focused on those opportunities, which were dispersed throughout the company," he said.

Clementi's post signals that IBM hopes to take advantage of high-end consulting services, Colley added. Seeing growing competition in the traditional technology services market, IBM has been seeking revenue growth in higher-margin consulting services.

The new mainframe general manager is Jim Stallings, who has led the server group's AS/400 line--now called iSeries--and the Linux business, but who most recently was vice president of intellectual property and standards in IBM's intellectual property group.