Centrix Software Hires Virtualization Vets For U.S. Sales Push

Centrix Software, a U.K.-based software vendor that is looking to expand its U.S. presence, on Tuesday announced the hiring of Barry Flanagan and George Pradel, two well-known virtualization industry sales veterans.

Flanagan, whose resume includes 11 years in various roles at Citrix Systems, during which he led the vendor's Microsoft alliance team, joins Centrix as senior director of strategic alliances. Pradel, who previously spent 7 years at Citrix and two years at VMware, assumes the role of senior sales engineer.

Flanagan and Pradel come to Centrix from Liquidware Labs, an Alpharetta, Ga.-based virtualization vendor, although both left that company less than a year after being hired. Liquidware itself has been steadily hoovering up virtualization talent from the former Vizioncore team, which is now part of Quest Software.

This rapid turnover is further evidence of the all-out feeding frenzy for talent that is raging in the so-called workspace management and user virtualization segments. These products, which include Centrix's flagship Workspace suite, give organizations insight into their desktops and applications, and are useful in Windows 7 migrations, desktop virtualization and cloud computing projects.

Hiring away Flanagan and Pradel will help Centrix expand its U.S. presence, said Simon Bramfitt, founder and research director at Entelechy Associates, a Concord, Calif.-based virtualization consultancy.

"Until recently, Centrix has had little presence in North America; however, the addition of Barry Flanagan and George Pradel, two of the industry's most respected and experienced figures, clearly indicates that it intends to become a much bigger player here," Bramfitt said.

Centrix was founded in 2008 and has its U.S. headquarters in Framingham, Mass.