Brocade Names New Chief Executive Officer

Carney, 50, was most recently CEO and a director at Xsigo Systems, the data center virtualization specialist that was sold to Oracle in 2012. Previously, he was CEO of Micromuse, a network management software company that became part of IBM Tivoli; a chief operating officer at Juniper Networks; and a past president of Nortel's Core IP, wireless Internet and enterprise divisions.

David House, chairman of Brocade's board of directors, said Brocade sees Carney as the "ideal leader to take Brocade to the next level."

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"Mr. Carney has a relentless passion for driving innovation and operational excellence," House said in a statement. "These characteristics, combined with his track record of execution, including delivering growth and increasing shareholder value, make him an outstanding choice to lead Brocade into its next phase."

Klayko had been CEO of Brocade since 2005 and presided over two of its major acquisitions: McData that same year and Foundry in 2008. Brocade confirmed his pending departure in August, and Klayko told analysts during Brocade's fourth-quarter earnings call in November that the CEO search was nearing an end.

Klayko will leave Brocade, which is still often rumored as a takeover target, on a relative high note. For its fourth quarter, Brocade reported a $54 million profit on $578 million in revenue, higher than what analysts had projected.

Brocade's stronghold remains to be storage-area networks (SAN), and it has struggled to grow its IP networking business, which in the fourth quarter declined 3 percent year-over-year. In recent months, it's turned its attention to focus on software-defined networking (SDN), acquiring hotshot network virtualization startup Vyatta in the process.

PUBLISHED JAN. 14, 2013

This story was updated on Jan. 15, 2012, at 5:30 p.m. PST, to correct that Brocade made a $54 million profit in the fourth quarter in 2012, not a loss.