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Veritas Loses CTO - Again

For the second time in four years, the CTO of Veritas Software Corp. (Nasdaq: VRTS) is leaving for a startup, and his job's migrating to a colleague. This time, though, it looks as if he won't be replaced -- not exactly, that is.

Fred van den Bosch, the executive VP of Veritas's Advanced Technology Group, as well as CTO, will leave the company by the end of April 2004 in order to head up his own company. His responsibilities will be taken over by Mark Bregman, the executive VP of product operations (see Veritas Adds Executive Sales VP). Veritas spokesman Andrew McCarthy says there's no plan to hire a CTO. Anything Bosch was doing becomes part of Bregman's job description.

We've been here before. Back in September 2002, Paul Borrill, a CTO who'd been with the company since 1999, took a powder to start his own company, leaving Bregman and Bosch in charge (see Exitus Veritas Replicus). By October 2002, Bosch was officially the CTO, though the move wasn't announced by the company.

Bosch's departure marks the latest in a long string of executive changes over the last four years, since Gary Bloom took over as CEO in November 2000. "Gary Bloom's management style differs from that of Mark Leslie, the prior CEO," writes Tom Curlin, director of equity research at RBC Capital Markets, in an email today. "Consequently, most of the leadership team from Leslie's tenure already has departed." Bosch's defection had been expected for months, Curlin notes.

Indeed, the surprise may be that he lasted so long once his old boss left. Then again, he's been a key force at the company for years, as well as one of its highest-paid execs, with more than $700,000 in salary and bonus in 2002. Educated as a mathematician in the Netherlands, he joined Veritas in 1990 after working for twenty years at Philips Computer Systems, and he began serving on the board of directors in 1996. He will remain on the board.

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