History 2002: Juan Rodriguez Replaces Bill Marriner as Interim CEO at Exabyte

The “merger” between Ecrix and Exabyte seems, with every passing day, more like an acquisition of the latter by the former, or at least of the latter by one of its co-founders.

Juan Rodriguez

Officially, Bill Marriner, president and CEO since 1996 (and chairman since 1997) has resigned, provisionally replaced in his duties by Juan Rodriguez, CTO of Exabyte since it merged with Ecrix, which he founded in 1996, after first co-founding Exabyte in 1985.

A spokeswoman of the company had this to say: “As you know from following Exabyte for many years, our recent revenue performance has not met expectations. A change in management was necessary due to this factor.”

It is indisputable that the 8mm company has fallen severely, from $363 million in 1996 to $ 158 million last year, with losses each year since 1998.

Larry Jones, on the board of directors since 1998, has now been elected chairman and will head a search committee for a new CEO, who will face a formidable task: to spur declining revenues, reverse losses, merge two 8mm technologies – both VXA and Mammoth – in order to slow down DLT and LTO, reinforce Exabyte’s position in tape libraries, all without losing sight of the high pace of SAN, NAS and soon iSCSI evolutions. Send your resumes now!

While waiting for better times, the 8mm firm has begun reducing its workforce to the tune of 110 jobs, a 20% cutback, not counting 10 other lay-offs internationally, which leaves 500 jobs intact WW.

To make matters worse, the company will close its service and assembly plant in Scotland, the R&D facility in Germany, as well as service depots in Australia and Canada.

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 169 on February 2002 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.