Ex-HP Cloud VP to Run Codero
February 29, 2012
HP’s VP of cloud services Emil Sayegh, responsible for sales, marketing, product management, customer support and the voice of OpenStack at HP, has been named president and CEO of up-and-coming cloud house Codero.
Sayegh was also head of Rackspace’s Cloud Computing Division before joining HP a year-and-a-half ago. He says he’ll take what he admires most about both his former employers and use those strengths in shaping Codero, which has been in the cloud game since 2006 when private equity house Catalyst Investors took over A Plus Hosting and spun out its hosting and cloud interests to form Codero…
Codero now has 4,000 customers, a base Emil is supposed to grow along with its server, cloud and managed hosting portfolio.
The company’s got two data centers, one in Phoenix, another in Chicago, and a third due to open soon in Virginia.
Emil takes over from CEO Jonathan Ewert brought in by Catalyst to manage the Codero spin-out. A reportedly friendly replacement, Ewert is staying on the board. Catalyst went after Emil – who says he was minding his own business – to recruit him, presumably sensing that he must have been dizzy from the repeated spinning of HP’s CEO office. He jumped to HP four CEOs ago back in the Hurd era.
Although Codero’s headquarters is officially in Kansas, Emil, who sees the future as the hybrid cloud, will remain in Austin and recruit personnel over the next six months out of the talent-rich Austin-Dallas-San Antonio corridor.
He indicated that Codero would probably join the open source OpenStack push set in train by Rackspace and merrily continue to automate its own widgetry. He said Codero’s wares are already pretty heavily automated but the company regards it as a make-or-break proposition.
He claims "Codero’s reliability, stability, and customer service make it a compelling alternative to other players in the hosting space. As a specialist in hosting, Codero already offers cost, flexibility and scalability advantages to a rapidly growing base of business customers. As we further expand our portfolio and offerings in both existing and new markets, Codero is primed to become the trusted source for IT infrastructure hosting solutions for businesses of all sizes."
Codero’s hybrid hosting platform of dedicated, managed and cloud services reportedly serves thousands of business customers worldwide and hundreds of thousands of both simple and complex web sites and applications, including gaming platforms and back office applications.
The company has the only customer loyalty rewards program of any of the major industry players.