History (1996): Wanted: New President and CEO for Exabyte

Exabyte (Boulder, CO) is searching for a new president and CEO.

The company will split what have been dual roles – COB and president/CEO – into 2 positions.

Peter Behrendt, who joined Exabyte as president in 1987 and has held both the COB and president/CEO positions since 1992, will continue to serve as chairman.

“We’ve reached the point as a company where we need additional executive talent to help us leverage our considerable corporate strengths (or profitable growth into the next century,” he said.

We can’t help comparing the reduction of Peter Behrendt’s position with Exabyte’s financial results over the past several quarters, not as good as before, even if they are not so bad.

The company’s adventure in 4mm DATs was expensive and was a failure. Wanting to develop its own 8mm technology was also a costly option and delayed the re1ease of the Mammoth which has to face many serious competitors. And finally, Exabyte will still have to prove that its choice of entering the Travan drive market with its Eagle line will be successful.

On the other hand, Michael P. Koclanes has been appointed VP marketing of Exabyte. He joined the company approximately 2 years ago as informations systems VP.

This article is an abstract of news published on the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter on issue 107, published on December 1996.