Citrix Systems, a developer of application server software, appointed its president, Mark Templeton, to the position of chief executive officer Wednesday.
Templeton, who has held the same title once before at Citrix, will fill a position in the executive staff that has remained empty since June 2000.
"We've had a search under way for a CEO for a number of months," said Joseph Horine, a Citrix spokesman. "Ultimately the board decided that Mark, all things considered, was the best suited for the job."
Templeton first became CEO of Citrix in early 1999, replacing longtime chief executive Roger Roberts, who retired after holding the CEO spot since the company's first year in business in 1990. Upon Roberts' resignation, Templeton became president and CEO until June 2000 when he dropped the CEO title and the company's board of directors began a search for a new top executive.
"At that point the board wanted to search for a broader executive while Mark maintained his role as president," Horine said, noting that the company interviewed a number of international candidates.
The company also said Wednesday that Roberts will step down from his role as interim chief operating officer but remain chairman of the board, and Chief Financial Officer John Cunningham will pick up an additional role as senior vice president of finance and operations.
While the company has lacked a lead executive in recent quarters, it has maintained an active business. On May 1, Citrix completed its US$184 million acquisition of Sequoia Software Corp., a provider of XML (extensible markup language)-based portal software. The company expects revenue to grow 20 percent in fiscal 2001 compared to the year before.
Among other software and service products, Citrix develops application server software that allows users to access a Microsoft Corp.-based operating system from a variety of devices such as Sun Microsystems' Solaris workstations and wireless PDAs (personal digital assistants).