Another Cisco exec joins Openwave
A Cisco Systems executive who resigned from the networking equipment giant lands at Openwave Systems, a company run by another former Cisco executive.
Former Cisco Senior Vice President Kevin Kennedy was tapped Tuesday as the new chief operating officer for Openwave, a Redwood City, Calif.-based wireless software maker that has weathered the ongoing telecommunications bust better than some of its competition.
Kennedy joins former Cisco executive Don Listwin at Openwave. Listwin resigned from Cisco last August to take the helm at Openwave as part of a merger of the former Phone.com and Software.com. The resulting company changed its name to Openwave Systems.
Kennedy, who formerly led Cisco's service provider business, left that company last week as part of a reorganization that de-emphasized particular business segments and aligned Cisco around specific technologies.
In addition, current Openwave Executive Vice President John MacFarlane will become chief technology officer at the company, a newly created position.
Kennedy spent eight years at Cisco and was one of the chief architects of its strategy to target telecommunications companies. Kennedy is just the latest of several high-profile executive departures from Cisco.
At the time of the Cisco reorganization last week, Cisco said Kennedy was leaving to pursue "external opportunities."
"In making my decision to join Openwave I looked at the future of the market and the fact that software and services are key growth areas," Kennedy said in a statement.