Top IBM exec moves to Dell

James Vanderstice, one of IBM’s top executives and chief architect of

IBM’s computer data storage business, has resigned from his post after 30

years of service and will join Dell Computer as vice chairman.

Currently, Vanderslice is IBM senior vice president and heads IBM’s

Technology Group. He will replace Dell Vice Chairman Mort Topfer, who plans to

retire from Dell at the end of 2001. IBM downplayed the loss of one of its top

leaders saying Vanderslice's departure came as part of a plan to reshuffle

several senior executive positions. The company has quickly appointed Linda

Sanford, the chief of IBM's sales force, to focus solely on the IBM storage

business, which Vanderslice headed. Nick Donofrio, head of IBM's research

division, was named to replace Vanderslice as head of the technology components

unit.

Vanderslice was responsible for several of the $30 billion worth of

multi-billion component supply deals IBM has signed this past year with major

computer makers, including a 7-year, $16 billion component supply pact with

Dell. Vanderslice rebuilt IBM's hard disk drive business by aggressively

incorporating new technology, developed at IBM's San Jose-based Almaden Research

Laboratory, into new storage products and by focusing on making selective

components rather than commodity drives themselves.

Vanderslice will join Dell Chairman and Chief Executive Michael Dell and

Kevin Rollins, another company vice chairman, in the company's three-man Office

of the Chief Executive. Dell also announced this week that it had named Sam

Nunn, the former U.S. senator from Georgia and one-time head of the Senate Armed

Services Committee, to join Dell's board of directors.