Former VMware, IBM Exec Mercer Rowe to Head Avaya Cloud Business

Mercer Rowe, former vice president of strategic partners at IBM‘s Watson and cloud computing platforms, has been named senior VP and general manager of a newly formed cloud business at Avaya.

He will oversee research, development and sales of public, private and hybrid cloud offerings in his new position, Avaya said Wednesday.

Jim Chirico, president and CEO at Avaya, said the company seeks to accelerate the delivery of cloud technology platforms to partners and customers through the new business unit and Rowe’s leadership skills.

Rowe previously served as CEO of VMware and SoftBank‘s joint venture vCloud Service focused on the Japanese market.

He also helped establish VMware’s own cloud organization and worked with multiple enterprise software and service startups to help drive their sales, channel and service offerings.

Earlier in his career, he served in engineering positions at Lockheed Martin and Nortel Networks.