Mike Devlin, co-founder of Rational Software Corp. and most recently general manager of IBMs Rational business unit, is retiring from the systems giant.
Sources said IBM announced Devlins retirement internally at the end of last month, along with the resignation of Hugh Scandrett, a longtime Rational executive and chief of development for the division, who was viewed as Devlins second-in-command.
Steve Eisenstadt, a spokesperson for IBM, of Armonk, N.Y., confirmed that both men are leaving IBM but said their departures are unrelated. Devlin will stay on to deliver a keynote at the IBM Rational Software Development Conference in Las Vegas this month.
“Mike is retiring from the company, and he is leaving with great fondness for Rational and the work were doing here,” Eisenstadt said.
Eisenstadt also confirmed that Danny Sabbah, the IBM Software Groups vice president of strategy and technology, will succeed Devlin as general manager of IBM Rational. Lee Nackman, chief technology officer of IBM Rational, will succeed Scandrett, Eisenstadt said.
Devlin, who served as CEO of Rational Software before IBM acquired the company in 2003 for $2.1 billion, joined IBM as general manager of the Rational division and became the head of one of IBMs five software brands.
Since acquiring Rational, IBM integrated the companys technology into the WebSphere tools suite, moved to base the entire tools suite on the Eclipse open-source platform and adopted much of Rationals model-driven architecture approach.
Devlin is the highest-ranking Rational executive to leave IBM since the acquisition. Other executives who have departed include Eric Schurr, who headed marketing, and Burton Goldfield, who led Rationals field organization. In addition, several engineers and architects left Rational to work for Microsoft Corp. and help develop that companys Visual Studio 2005 Team System product and the Software Factories technology that Microsoft is working to deliver.
Among the key IBM Rational releases under Devlins leadership was the IBM Software Development Platform, formerly code-named Atlantic.
In an eWEEK interview last summer, Devlin said, “Rational is the brand thats driving the overall software development strategy, which makes sense given thats our background. And what weve defined across IBM in total, and particularly across the Software Group, is something we call the Software Development Platform. Basically it integrates all of our various tools—basic WebSphere Studio and Eclipse technology—those groups have been moved into Rational and are part of our team now.”