Sotnick To Leave Veritas For SAP

Sotnick told CRN he is leaving his Veritas post to take a job as senior vice president of SMB for the U.S. market at software giant SAP, Waldorf, Germany.

Veritas executives Friday announced Sotnick's departure internally in a memo signed by Mike Coney, senior vice president of Americas Field Operations at the Mountain View, Calif.-based company, who said Sotnick was leaving "to pursue other endeavors."

Solution providers said Sotnick was a great channel friend, but they were not surprised that he is leaving.

Pat Edwards, vice president of sales at Alliance Technology Group, Hanover, Md., said Symantec's pending acquisition of Veritas means a lot of duplication at the managerial level, and that the new company will have to trim some fat.

"Now we're seeing the new character of Symantec," Edwards said. "Either [Veritas managers] are being fired, or they're leaving. Have you heard of any Symantec people leaving?"

Edwards said that because of the difference in size between Symantec, Cupertino, Calif., and Veritas, the speculation is that the larger Symantec will bring the dominant culture to the combined company, which does not necessarily bode well for the channel. "There will be more potential for off-the-shelf and direct sales of Veritas software," he said.

Mark Teter, CTO of Advanced Systems Group, a Denver-based solution provider, said he believed Sotnick's departure had been long planned, and not necessarily related to the Symantec acquisition.

Part of the reason is the decrease in importance of Veritas as a supplier of storage management technology, Teter said. "I've been saying for two years that Veritas is a sinking ship anyway," he said. "Sun now includes many of the Veritas functions in Solaris. And [Oracle CEO] Larry Ellison in one fell swoop with Oracle 10g said there is no need for Veritas."

During the dot-com era, everyone bought Sun, Oracle and Veritas, Teter said. "That trifecta is now just Oracle and Sun," he said.