Inprise CEO steps down

Del Yocam, CEO of software and services company Inprise, resigned yesterday. The company's chief financial officer, Kathleen Fisher, also stepped down.

Inprise's UK MD, Nigel Brown, speculated that boardroom displeasure led to Yocam's decision to leave three months before his contract ended. "I think there was board pressure," he said. "Our share prices haven't been performing as well as we would like."

Brown explained that Yocam was hired on a two and a half year contract, which was due to end in June. "He's a multimillionaire and we all expected him to leave when his contract ended," he said.

"Maybe things were not going quite the way he planned," Brown continued. "He did announce some cuts in the US and Japan. He announced 20 per cent redundancies in January. We saw that there didn't seem to be the cuts he wanted. Why go through three months more pain if you've got millions in the bank?"

Brown felt that the structure Yocam set up - dividing the company into two divisions devoted to tools and the enterprise - would survive the new management. But he didn't know who would replace him as CEO.

Brown was quick to note that Inprise's European operations were doing fine. "As far as Europe's concerned, it won't affect us. I just closed a record quarter for us."