Cole joins Enterasys

Former Cisco channel director Kip Cole has joined the networking market's underdog Enterasys Networks in the newly-created role of VP of sales for South Asia.

Cole exited Cisco Systems Australia in May. In his new role, Cole would drive sales in Australia and New Zealand, India and the ASEAN region, increasing channel coverage in these areas.

Speaking with CRN, Cole said over the last two years Enterasys had hired a new executive team and brought to market a revised product portfolio around secure networking.

Enterasys' Australian boss Gary Mitchell last month claimed that Enterasys was the only network vendor that had implemented security technologies into the fabric of its switches.

Cole -- who would be based out of Singapore -- said he saw a lot of “vitality” in the Enterasys organisation and a “willingness to challenge the status quo”.

“I'm invigorated by the idea of having significant clarity and no bureaucracy,” he said of Enterasys. In his role, Cole would report to Enterasys' Asia-Pacific president Attley Ng.

It's been a tough year for the networking outfit. Last October, the company paid US$50 million to settle shareholder litigation over its restatement of financial results for the 2001 fiscal and transition years.

Six class actions had been filed against the firm in New Hampshire, US, the former location of its headquarters when it was known as Cabletron. In May this year, three former top US executives at the company were indicted on US federal charges that they conspired to inflate the company's revenue.

Meanwhile, last month in Australia, the company retrenched three sales staff in its Sydney and Melbourne offices. At the time, Mitchell declined to comment on why staff were retrenched but said there was a drive to place business development managers to work with partners.

Enterasys has bagged several recent Australian contracts on the basis of its secure networks strategy and the rollout of demonstration centres, Enterasys' Mitchell said. Around 50 partners across the Asia-Pacific region were “starting up” customer demonstration centres, he said.

Cole had been with Cisco for four years and prior to that role was managing director for Sybase in Australia.

Earlier in his career, he was corporate communications manager for Fujitsu Australia and held marketing positions with Honeywell Information Systems in the UK and Groupe Bull in the United States.