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Veritas hires Oracle exec
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November 17, 2000: 6:50 p.m. ET
Names Gary Bloom as chief executive; CEO Leslie to remain as chairman
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Data software maker Veritas Software Corp. Friday said it named Oracle Corp. vice president Gary Bloom as the company's new president and chief executive officer, hiring away a potential heir apparent to Oracle Chief Executive Larry Ellison.
Bloom, 40, was executive vice president at Oracle and one of the top officials there, in charge of its core database business and involved in the execution of Oracle's Internet and e-business efforts.
He told analysts late Friday that he had been very happy at Oracle (ORCL: Research, Estimates), the nation's second-largest software company after Microsoft Corp. (MSFT: Research, Estimates), but that his belief that the 56-year-old Ellison would stay in place at Oracle for the foreseeable future was a major factor in his deciding to leave the company.
 "There was certainly no lack of opportunity for me at Oracle," Bloom said. "At the same time, I have a career desire to be chief executive, and in [the] case of Oracle, Larry is CEO well into foreseeable future."
The move is the latest departure of a top Oracle executive recently. Raymond Lane, Oracle's president and chief operating officer, left in July. But Bloom's departure appears to be very friendly. He will remain with Oracle until Dec.15 to facilitate a transition, and Oracle took the unusual step of issuing a press release praising Bloom's hiring by Veritas.
"Gary is joining a key Oracle partner," said a statement from Ellison. "With Gary at Veritas, we expect an already close relationship to grow even closer."
Oracle has a partnership with Veritas and Sun Microsystems Inc. (SUNW: Research, Estimates) to provide global customer support to their joint customers.
Ellison told CNNfn's Biz Buzz program that Oracle has enough executive bench strength not to miss a beat from Bloom's departure. His responsibilities will be assigned to a number of executives who were not immediately identified. (499K WAV or 499K AIFF)
 Still, shares of Oracle fell in heavy after-hours trading after the announcement, dropping $4.06 to $24.75 in Instinet trade, after gaining $1.44 to $28.81 in regular-hours activity.
Veritas (VRTS: Research, Estimates) shares, which had been punished in regular-hours trading due to investors' concerns about what would be announced in the Friday after-hours announcement, soared $4.44 to $114.63 in after-hours trading. The shares fell $10.81 to $110.19 in regular-hours activity before the announcement.
Mark Leslie, 54, who has served as chairman and CEO of Veritas, will retain the chairman title and stay active with the company. He has held the top two spots since 1990 and was its first president when it was formed as a software company in 1989. He said he went to the board six months ago and said he wanted to do other things with his life.
"The first call I made was to Gary," Leslie said.
 Leslie said internal candidates were not seriously considered for the CEO spot because none had the experience of rapid growth and operating a much larger company, which are Veritas' current goals.
"We think he's the perfect guy to take Veritas from being a $1 billion to a $10 billion company," Leslie said. "It's all teed up, Gary. Don't screw it up."
Bloom said that he had been getting five to 10 calls a week about possible CEO positions."In 99.9 percent of the time, I don't bother to call back," he said.
But his knowledge of Veritas from his work at Oracle convinced him to look into this opportunity. "This seemed like a natural fit for me," he said.
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"I have a career desire to be chief executive, and in case of Oracle, Larry is CEO well into foreseeable future."
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Gary Bloom
New CEO of Veritas Software
speaking about Oracle Corp. and Larry Ellison, its CEO |
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Bloom oversaw more than 14,000 employees at Oracle. He said he does not expect to make any significant hires of former Oracle executives in his new job.
Veritas, with about 4,400 employees worldwide, is one of the world's top storage-management software makers, making products that guard computer networks against data loss from crashes and errors and expedite data recovery.
Veritas is in the process of buying back about $18 billion worth of Veritas common stock Seagate Technology Inc. (SEG: Research, Estimates) now holds, in addition to certain securities and cash. The value of that stock had grown to overwhelm the value of Seagate's core tape-drive and disk-drive businesses. After that transaction, Seagate's continued operations will be taken private by an investors' group.
Both companies' shareholders are set to vote on that transaction Tuesday. The announcement was made so it would not remain private at the time of those votes. 
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