Computing giant Hewlett-Packard has tapped an executive at Rackspace, the Texas-based cloud services company, to join the team running its own cloud computing business.
Mark Interrante, Rackspace’s senior VP for products and engineering, has joined HP as senior VP of Engineering in HP’s cloud business unit, according to a memo sent to HP employees earlier this week and obtained by Re/code. He’ll report to HP’s executive VP and CTO Martin Fink, who sent the memo. (Read it below.)
Interrante, who I’m told left Rackspace in March, will run the team handling research and development of HP’s cloud computing unit. He was also on the team that developed OpenStack, the open source cloud computing operating system, one which HP has recently embraced as well.
Speaking of things related to HP and Rackspace, there was a report last week that HP had offered $43 a share, or about $6 billion, to buy Rackspace. The move, were it to happen, would be seen to mirror IBM’s acquisition last year of another cloud services player, SoftLayer. Rackspace has been on the block since it announced in April that it had tapped Morgan Stanley to explore strategic options. But multiple sources familiar with HP’s plans categorically denied that HP made an offer for Rackspace.
Okay, then. Here’s the memo.
HP Cloud Leadership Announcement
To: HP Cloud
Today, I am pleased to welcome Mark Interrante to HP as the SVP, Engineering for HP Cloud. Mark will be responsible for Cloud R&D, and Rajeev Bharadhwaj and Omri Gazitt’s teams will report to Mark, effective immediately. Our R&D teams have made great progress in the past several months. We have restructured to focus on our new roadmap and have grown our teams from both within HP and external hiring. We have released new and exciting products such as Helion OpenStack Community, Helion OpenStack Commercial (Beta) and the Helion Development Platform (Beta) leveraging our Cloud Foundry TM partnership. There has also been great work done in support of the Public Cloud. Now is the time to bring in a leader to focus on the continued growth and excellence of the Cloud R&D function. Our ability to attract leaders of Mark’s caliber to the Cloud organization is further evidence of our momentum in the marketplace and of the strength of our plans.
As previously communicated, Saar Gillai will continue to lead the COO function for HP Cloud, with ownership of business development, Public Cloud operations, professional services, as well as other pan-Cloud strategy and operations functions.
Mark was most recently SVP of Products and Engineering at Rackspace where he led the creation and growth of the product organization. Having started early in OpenStack, Mark is passionate about open source software and its potential to build communities that can change the world.
Prior to Rackspace, Mark was the GM of Yahoo Media, where he led the global product teams for Finance, News, Sports, and Entertainment. He has held technology roles at HP (Printers, Test & Measurement, HP Shopping), Deloitte Consulting, and Texas Instruments (AI and Robotics). Mark has also held leadership roles in three startups: Spoke Software, Public Mind, and Enviz.
Mark earned a B.S. in Applied Math from the University of Texas, Dallas, an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of North Texas, and a Masters Eng. in Software Engineering from the University of Florida. When not at work, Mark enjoys doing photography, traveling the world, or watching movies.
Mark will be based in Sunnyvale. Please join me in welcoming him to HP Cloud.
Regards,
Martin
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
