CDN has learned that former Sun Canada channel chief John Cammalleri will be named HP Canada’s new channel boss as early as Monday, April 12th.
Two highly places sources have indicated to CDN that Cammalleri, the vice-president of channels and alliances with Sun Canada before the Oracle acquisition, will get the vacated by Greg Chappell in February of this year.
CDN was able to reach Charles Salameh, vice president & General Manager of HP Canada’s Personal Systems Group via phone this morning. Salameh would not confirm that Cammalleri was the new channel chief, but did say that new person would be announced on Monday.
Cammalleri is a well liked, hard working executive that had to deal with an extremely difficult situation in 2009 with Sun/Oracle.
Cammalleri, a 2009 CDN Top Newsmaker, said keeping on board a channel base was a challenging task considering all the pending Oracle acquisition and what it will mean for their businesses.
Cammalleri will take over a very loyal channel base, but one that will be on the front lines against Cisco Systems in the marketplace.
Luc Villeneuve, president of NCR Canada, thinks it’s great news for the IT industry that Cammalleri is the new HP Canada channel chief.
“This is a big loss for Oracle – John is one of the best Channel executives I’ve had the pleasure to work with for over 15 years in the business. I’m not surprise John is deciding to move on to HP considering the reduction in channel commitment Oracle is communicating to the partners at large from corporate office,” Villeneuve said in an email to CDN.
Villeneuve said Cammalleri is a perfect fit for this role at HP, having spent the better part of his career in the channel. “John brings a high level of understanding of the channel, an uncompromising level of integrity and great passion for the channel community which I’m sure will be well served with his leadership and open communication style,” he added.
CDN learned that one of the main reasons for Cammalleri being offered the job was his many close relationships with Sun partners.
IBM has been public about aggressively pursuing the Sun business. HP and Cisco have also targeted Sun.
Sun partner Bradley Brodkin, president of HighVail Systems said that Cammalleri will flourish at HP Canada.
“John brought back true focus on the partner similar to the way it was with Sun in the early 90s when partners were viewed as a partner and not just another reseller,” Brodkin said.
While he understands that this job is a fantastic opportunity for Cammalleri, Brodkin, as a Sun partner, is still sorry to see him go. “He has a very good personal approach to business and I could count on him and rely on him for advice and help anytime. He is always pro partner,” he said.
Cammalleri started in the IT industry at ComputerCorp in 1987. He then moved to Merisel Canada as sales director, national channel partners. After five years at Merisel (now Synnex), he got a job at IBM as its national channel manager for the storage division.
In 1997, Cammalleri started a nine year term as district manager for HP Canada.
He left HP in 2006 to become the country director of IT products for Samsung. He then moved to Sun Canada in 2007.