Blackman leaves Symantec for virtualisation vendor

Following VMware’s announcement of a fourth quarter increase of US$1 billion, the EMC subsidiary has taken on David Blackman as channels director at the virtualisation vendor.

Previously, Blackman was the regional director, alliances and channels at anti-virus vendor Symantec. He was at Symantec for more than four years.

Paul Harapin, managing director A/NZ at VMWare said Blackman’s position was newly created.

“Our business has expanded and we needed to have someone building our channel business further in the Australian marketplace,” he said.

Harapin said Blackman was a well known figure in the IT industry and he was ready for a change, when the position at VMWare was offered to him.

“Blackman focus will on our go to market channel, which includes resellers and OEM partners. Our top resellers include HP, Dell and systems integrator services, IBM ISG, which is based out of Perth,” said Harapin.

He will essentially build on the vendor’s current channel strategy and direct the channel team with resources.

“We are in process of hiring a couple of more people for the channel team, which has already been expanded since Blackman got on board,” he said.