Rackable finds a sales chief

Handy to have

Server and storage maker Rackable Systems has picked up a hardware veteran as its new chief of sales.

The company this week announced Carl Boisvert, former CEO of bladed PC maker ClearCube, as its new EVP in charge of sales and worldwide marketing. Boisvert replaces Thomas Gallivan, who resigned with little explanation in January. Before ClearCube, Boisvert served as an SVP at fault-tolerant server maker Stratus.

“(Carl's) strong leadership, demonstrated record of success in growing top line revenue and gross margin, and innate ability to deliver results will be valuable assets to Rackable Systems as we continue to grow and expand our geographical and vertical reach,” said Rackable chief Tom Barton.

And with that canned quotation we learn that the “ability to deliver results” is more of a genetic feat than a learned skill.

El Reg has tried and failed to push more information on Gallivan's exit out of Barton. We have, however, heard from sources that Gallivan's vision for Rackable differed quite a bit from the rest of the management.

Rackable continues to make a name for itself by grabbing top-line internet service provider customers. But the company faces the very real challenge of trying to grow at a rapid rate, while competing against the likes of HP, Dell, IBM and Sun Microsystems in a lower-margin x86 server business. ®