Cisco replaces collaboration group head again

Cisco has named a former Symantec executive to head its struggling collaboration group, which saw three different leaders in less than a year.

Rowan Trollope is Cisco's new senior vice president and general manager of the collaboration business. He succeeds O.J. Winge, the former Tandberg executive who assumed leadership of the group earlier this year from former collaboration head Barry O'Sullivan.

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Winge (pictured left) is leaving Cisco for "personal reasons," according to this blog post by Marthin De Beer, senior vice president, of Cisco's video and collaboration group.

At Symantec, Trollope was most recently group president of the company's Symantec.cloud business unit where he oversaw product development, strategy, product sales, and marketing teams. He also oversaw the consumer, enterprise and small and mid-sized business segments.

"Rowan brings to Cisco an excellent track record in the software-as-a-service (SaaS) market; vital experience of end-user product development expertise, and a proven background in security and category leadership," De Beer states in his blog.

At Cisco, Trollope will assume responsibility for the Cisco collaboration portfolio, including TelePresence, Unified Communications Manager and WebEx. In addition, he will oversee collaboration software, devices, infrastructure and services that enable video and social collaboration, unified communications, customer contact centers, conferencing, mobility, and desktop virtualization technologies, according to the De Beer post.

Trollop's new duties are effective Nov. 12 and he will report to De Beer.

Winge joined Cisco with its 2009 acquisition of videoconferencing leader Tandberg. He succeeded O'Sullivan last summer as head of the collaboration business, according to CRN.

Cisco's collaboration business has been hampered by execution issues and declining sales. The business was flat in Cisco's third quarter with TelePresence hit by decreased spending in public sector and enterprise.

In the fourth quarter, collaboration saw an 8% decline.

Jim Duffy has been covering technology for over 25 years, 21 at Network World. He also writes The Cisco Connection blog and can be reached on Twitter @Jim_Duffy.

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Tags social mediainternettelepresenceunified communicationsNetworkingsoftwareapplicationsWeb 2.0symantecInternet-based applications and servicesLAN & WANexecutive departuresCisco executive changesmanagement shakeup

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