The well-traveled Tod Nielsen has landed at Borland.
The former Oracle Corp. executive, former BEA Systems Inc. executive, former CrossGain executive and longtime former Microsoft Corp. executive has resurfaced at Cupertino, Calif.-based Borland Software Corp. as CEO.
Nielsen most recently served as senior vice president of marketing and global sales support at Oracle. But when news broke that his former Microsoft colleague and friend Greg Maffei resigned as chief financial officer of the database giant, many observers began to wonder how long Nielsen would remain at Oracle. Indeed, Nielsen joined Oracle not long after Maffei came on as CFO. Prior to Oracle, Nielsen was chief marketing officer at BEA.
“Joining Borland at this time is a tremendous opportunity. As businesses become more dependent on their IT strategy to drive growth, the need for predictable, accountable, and repeatable software delivery is greater than ever before,” said Nielsen in a statement. “Software organizations are facing significant challenges in order to be more responsive to business needs, and I believe Borland is the right company to help address these challenges. This is a company with a rich history that is synonymous with application development, and has a strong vision for the future of software delivery. I am looking forward to working with the team at Borland to help our customers deliver increased business value from their software.”
Meanwhile, the Borland board of directors issued a statement thanking Scott Arnold, who had been acting as Borlands interim CEO. But the company gave no indication of what Arnolds role will be going forward.
“We are extremely pleased to have Tod Nielsen join as our new chief executive officer,” said William Hooper, chairman of the Borland board of directors. “The board of directors was impressed with Mr. Nielsens deep experience in our target markets, his proven leadership in market-leading software companies, and the passion he brings as an individual to the need for better software development. We are confident that Borland, behind Mr. Nielsens leadership, will push forward in its pursuit of software delivery optimization, and continue to drive customer success.”
Nielsen will make his first appearance as Borlands CEO when he addresses the companys 16th annual developer conference in San Francisco Tuesday morning.