Electronic Data Systems Inc has lost the head of its E.Solutions electronic commerce division, only two months after setting the unit up as its newest growth engine (CI No 3,654). Gary Moore, previously the president of EDS’ manufacturing strategic business unit, was appointed to run the $2bn E.Solutions division in May, in charge of 20,000 employees. But on Tuesday it was revealed that the 26-year EDS veteran had left to head up internet start- up Enterprise Networking Systems Inc, of Redwood City, California.
My ultimate goal has been to occupy the top position in a company, and this opportunity gets me to that goal today said Moore in a statement. Moore has had previous experience as a CEO – between 1989 and 1992 he was president and CEO of Hitachi Data Systems Ltd, the EDS-Hitachi joint venture that manufactured high-performance computer and storage systems. Hitachi took over full control of the joint venture in February of this year.
Moore leaves on August 1, and is replaced by John McCain, currently head of the unit’s 5,000 strong consultancy practice. McCain was one of the team that set up the E.Solutions organization. Before that, he was president of the CIO business unit, one of seven merged together to form E.Solutions. EDS said it had won several major e-commerce business agreement over the last few weeks, including the Sony Metreon virtual-mall, the largest card processing agreement in its history signed with Equifax Inc, and a national interactive billing agreement with BankOne.
Moore’s new company, ENS, is the privately owned network infrastructure services company which recently sold off its Networking Integration division to NEC America Inc. Funded by a financing syndicate led by Benchmark Capital, Cisco Systems and Trinity Ventures, the company is now concentrating on providing network services that prepare corporate networks for the shift to internet-based connectivity.
Moore isn’t the first EDS executive to be attracted away by the company. Last month, 22-year EDS veteran Will Clark was appointed as president and chief operating officer of ENS. As a salesman, Clark is the man credited with closing what was at the time the largest outsourcing deal in history – the $3.2bn, ten-year Xerox deal signed in 1994, and revised in 1996. Unfortunately, that deal has turned nasty, with the two now locked in a major legal battle over alleged poor performance by EDS. á
