Roel Pieper, until yesterday chief executive of Tandem Computers Inc, apparently concluded more than the acquisition of Tandem by Compaq Computer Corp during his six day tete a tete with Compaq chief Eckhard Pfeiffer in June (CI No 3,189). He has just been appointed senior vice president and general manager of Compaq’s worldwide sales, marketing, service and support group, and will not be replaced at Tandem. While a Tandem spokesperson in Cupertino insisted that the loss of a chief executive officer did not mean the company was about to be subsumed into the parent, it does look like Compaq is readying itself to integrate Tandem’s high-end, high availability product line into its own, so it can offer customers a single and broad range of products from palmtops to the very high-end. Also moving up to Compaq is Tandem’s senior vice president sales and customer service John Losier, who will become Compaq’s vice president global accounts. For the time being at least, Enrico Pesatori remains president of Tandem, reporting directly to Pfeiffer, but minus a chief executive and a senior vice president of sales and customer service, it really does look like the beginning of the end for Tandem as we knew it.
