EMC Documentum has lost its Australian managing director Graham Pullen to rival content management vendor Vignette Corp., where Pullen will take over the reins as Asia Pacific vice president.
Pullen"s departure is understood to have come as a surprise to EMC Documentum, especially as he has recently been credited with scoring a number of significant wins for the vendor.
EMC has sought to expand its storage offerings into the growing enterprise content management space since acquiring Documentum in October 2003.
A spokesperson at EMC Documentum confirmed to Computerworld Pullen has indeed left the organization, but wouldn"t say where he had gone. In the interim EMC Documentum Asia Pacific services director Steve Thomas will take over until a replacement can be found.
Meanwhile, Vignette has wasted no time in crowing about its management coup - at least in the US. While Vignette"s Australian offices did not immediately return calls and is yet to issue a press release, its US Web site is already spruiking the fact that Pullen has been lured across.
"Prior to joining Vignette, Pullen was EMC Documentum"s managing director of Australia and New Zealand, where he lead the software sales team that achieved solid growth year over year. While at EMC Documentum he lead teams that successfully sold enterprise-class software solutions at strategic business levels within multiple organizations," the Web site states.
A former national sales director for Vignette Australia from 1998 to 2001, Pullen is also quoted on the site.
"I"m thrilled to be back at Vignette," Pullen says via the Web from Austin, Texas, where he is "currently attending a leadership summit" according to Vignette"s local office.
Having acquired Tower Technologies in January 2004, Vignette has been seeking to increase its market share while fighting off increased competition from not only EMC, but aggressive new competitors such as Interwoven which has recently monstered the university and legal content management markets in Australia.
However, Interwoven also lost local managing director Richard Collins this month.