HP confirms new networking boss

Dust starts to settle - at least for now - at embattled tech giant

Embattled technology giant HP looks close to finishing its game of executive musical chairs with the appointment of Bethany Mayer to head up its networking business.

Mayer replaces Marius Haas, one of a legion of senior executives at the firm that jumped ship when under the command of previous boss Leo Apotheker.

Previously, Mayer had worked as a marketing vice president for enterprise, storage and networking at HP, along with stints at WAN optimisation vendor Blue Coat Systems and mail server appliance maker Mirapoint.

Meanwhile, in a further bid to help the dust settle, HP’s new chief executive, Meg Whitman, has said that a decision on whether to sell off its PC division – a move first mooted by Apotheker during his ramshackle tenure – would be made by the end of October, far earlier than previously suggested.

Yesterday, HP also confirmed it had finalised another of Apotheker's contoversial moves, closing the £6bn acquisition of UK software firm Autonomy.