McCormack started out as a marketing rep for IBM in the Columbus, Ohio, offices of Big Blue back in 1977, eventually becoming manager of large systems marketing in Detroit. He then held various sales and marketing jobs in IBM’s channels organizations, which is why he was tapped to be head of sales for the iSeries. The iSeries is predominantly sold through IBM’s channel partners.
Bill Donohue is the new vice president of worldwide iSeries sales, and he reported to work on July 1 to iSeries general manager Mark Shearer. Donohue joined IBM’s sales force in 1981 and has held various positions in the SMB and channel areas. Since 2001, Donohue has been in charge of pSeries Unix server sales in the Americas region, so he knows a thing or two about growing a business.
Of course, growing IBM’s Unix server business between 2001 and 2005 was a challenge, but made significantly easier by the excellent RISC server hardware and wickedly aggressive pricing IBM delivered compared to its Unix competitors throughout this time.
Growing the iSeries will probably be a bit more challenging, but the good news is that the iSeries has that same RISC server hardware and the rugged i5/OS platform. Anyone who helped IBM become a contender in Unix servers and grow sales for 12 consecutive quarters knows a lot of things that can help the iSeries cause.
