Joseph A Marengi, the recently departed chief operating officer of Novell Inc, has joined Dell Computer Corp as a senior vice president. Marengi resigned from Novell in June following poor second quarter results and public criticism from the newly appointed chief executive Eric Schmidt (CI No 3,177). Marengi will assume control of the Dell Americas unit, which sells direct to large and medium-sized business customers. Coincidentally, Marengi’s former boss at Novell, Robert Frankenberg, who was chairman, president and chief executive until August 1996, has just accepted a position at Encanto Networks Inc. Frankenberg will become president and chief executive officer of Encanto, a new company formed this year with funding from Pulsar Venture Group and based in Santa Clara, California. Encanto aims to provide small businesses with a new type of low cost Java-based appliance which will allow them to build and manage their own Website. Encanto claims alliances with Sun Microsystems Inc and Hewlett-Packard Co, and Frankenberg’s background as a former vice president at Hewlett-Packard Co will no doubt also prove to be helpful.
