New Micromuse Chief To Focus On Building Channel

Carney, who previously served as executive vice president of operations at Juniper Networks, said one area of primary concern for him will be building up Micromuse's channel.

"Obviously the size that we are, one of the areas I'm going to have to give a lot of focus to is the channel, [on] how do I get more people delivering my solution to the marketplace," Carney said during a conference call. "I need to get more channel partners being more efficient, and I need to look through the portfolio to see how can we repackage what we have, rebundle what we have, or what we need to add to the portfolio, either by internal design or whatever means necessary," he said.

Developing a robust channel strategy becomes increasingly important as the San Francisco-based company continues to expand beyond its core service provider customer base into enterprise accounts, Carney said.

"We're going to remain steadfastly focused on the service provider space, continuing our investments there, but the growth area for us is the enterprise, and we're going to have to be able to do both," he said.

Prior to working at Juniper Networks, Carney held several executive positions at Nortel Networks, including president of Nortel's enterprise and wireless Internet divisions. Carney came to Nortel through its acquisition of Bay Networks.

He has also held managerial and engineering roles at Data General, Prime Computer, Proteon and Radio Corporation of America (RCA).

With Carney's appointment, Mike Luetkemeyer, who has served as interim CEO since Jan. 1, will continue in his role as CFO and as a member of the Micromuse board. Dave Schwab, who has served as Micromuse's non-executive chairman since Jan. 1, will become lead independent director of the board.

Micromuse last week said it earned $429,000, or 1 cent per share, on revenue of $33 million during its third fiscal quarter, ended June 30.

Shares of Micromuse closed up one cent at $7.28 following the announcement.