Ex-Microsoft vet appointed Brocade channel boss as Greig Guy departs

Networking vendor Brocade has announced Paul Barge as its new Australia and New Zealand channel manager.

Barge replaces ANZ partner manager Greig Guy, who departed Brocade in December on a "sabbatical" after nine years of service, according to a company spokesperson.

"It is crucial that we have the right team and leaders in place to better align the channel with customer needs," said Brocade ANZ senior director Gary Denman. "Paul's appointment is very relevant for our channel as we revitalise our partners' abilities to market, sell and implement the new open network in a cloud computing era."

The new channel manager will divide his time between Sydney and Auckland and will report to Denman.

"Brocade's an established organisation but also small and nimble… where I feel I can make a real difference," Barge told CRN.

Barge said that he spent five years at Red Hat after arriving in Australia in 2007, where he learnt a lot about the subscription sales model. He then headed to Cisco, where he looked after systems integrator partners.

Barge's most recent role saw him "moving collaboration to the cloud for partners" during a consulting stint at NEC Australia.

The UK native also racked up more than 13 years for Microsoft back in Europe. "I dealt with resellers, distributors and OEMs. That was in the heady 1990s – exciting times for Microsoft."

Barge told CRN that his software roots at Microsoft has him excited for Brocade "leading the way" in software-defined networking.