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Novell announced on March 9 that it has hired a new executive to run its Linux and open source business unit.
Roger Levy, formerly with Lucent Technologies, has been named general manager of the Open Platform Solutions business unit. He will report to Jeff Jaffe, executive vice president and CTO. At Lucent, Levy had held several executive development and business positions.
Levy will be replacing David Patrick, who will be pursuing interests outside of Novell.
Patrick joined Novell in 2003 as part of the acquisition of Ximian, where he had been president and CEO. Ximian had been the company behind the GNOME Linux and Unix desktop interface and the Mono programming environment.
The Ximian purchase was Novells first step in its transformation from being a legacy operating system company to a Linux company.
In an exclusive Linux-Watch interview, Patrick explained, “Personally I always looked at this as a three year commitment. I wanted to see three major pieces of Ximian technology: GNOME, Mono, and Red Carpet (which became part of the ZENworks systems management program) integrated with Novells product line. I also wanted to help Novell to migrate into the Linux market. This has been done now.”
Now, Patricks “planning on taking some time off. I may start looking in the Boston area for another job, but Im not in a rush. Im going to take it easy for a while.”
During 2005, many former SUSE executives left Novell. These included SUSE Linux co-founder Hubert Mantel, Novell SUSE European channel executive Petra Heinric, and former SUSE President Richard Seibt.