Novell Inc president and chief operating officer Joseph Marengi has quit the networking software company. Rumors of Marengi’s departure had been circulating for sometime but gained momentum following the company’s poor second-quarter performance and disparaging comments from chief executive Eric Schmidt about past management at the company. For the second quarter Novell, reported a net loss of $21.6m and plans to take charges of $25- to-$35m in the third quarter to layoff of 18% of its roughly 5,800 employees. At the time of the announcement, Schmidt was openly critical of the management he had inherited at the company when he took over in March. Frankly the management performance has not been good, said Schmidt. Marengi is the biggest head to fall in a management shake-up at the company initiated by Schmidt. 30% of Novell’s top executives have either left the company, been fired or been demoted since Schmidt became chief executive. When Schmidt joined the company, Marengi, who had also applied for the position, said he would stay at Schmidt’s discretion. Marengi became interim president at Novell last August when Robert Frankenberg resigned as chairman, chief executive and president. Schmidt’s acting president for now.
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