With the promotion of Katie McAuliff to vice-president of channels, Novell Americas, Novell Canada turned to a long-time Novell mainstay in tapping the subsidiary’s chief technology officer, Ross Chevalier, to lead the Canadian operation.
As president of Novell Canada, Chevalier has outlined three key business goals which to align the company: executing on actionable strategy, a workable vision that resonates with partners and customers, and leveraging the talent at Novell and in its partner base along with customers and other industry communities.
A 25-year veteran of Canada’s IT industry, Chevalier says he’s grateful for the opportunity and excited for the challenge.
“I spent 11-years at Novell and I was a Novell partner since the 1980s (he was an executive at Brains II). Novell is a big part of that and I am honoured to work with these people,” he says, adding as a former partner he knows how important it is for the vendor to create revenue streams that have margins that make it worth the channel’s while.
On the technology front, 2008 saw Novell strengthen its open source partnership with Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), an important revenue stream for the vendor, as well as update its GroupWise platform, launched its Compliance Management Platform, and acquired open source collaboration tool vendor SiteScape.