Cisco Exits Continue: SVP Resigns, Security VP To Juniper

First was Daniel Scheinman, senior vice president and general manager, Cisco Media Solutions Group, who appears to have resigned from Cisco as the future of both his group and its major product, Eos, remained unclear.

Eos, a SaaS-based media solutions platform debuted by Cisco in 2007, was mentioned as part of Cisco's dramatic restructuring of its consumer business earlier this week, although Cisco did not confirm exact details of what would become of Eos itself or the Media Solutions Group.

Scheinman confirmed his resignation Tuesday on his Twitter feed: "Hello Twitter people! Resigning from csco. Sad day. Eos succeeded technically, but economically we were still 2 years off. Thank you!!"

A 19-year Cisco veteran, Scheinman joined the company in 1992 and managed Cisco's mergers and acquisitions for several years before the Media Solutions Group's assembly in 2007. He reported to Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers.

Elsewhere, Juniper, which just wrapped up its Americas Partner Summit in Phoenix, on Thursday named Nawaf Bitar its new senior vice president and general manager, Emerging Technologies.

Bitar was most recently Cisco's vice president, engineering and operations, security technology business unit, and his move this week represents another VP-level defection to Juniper from Cisco following Luanne Tierney's move earlier this year.

Bitar joined Cisco in 2007 with Cisco's acquisition of IronPort Systems, and he was most recently in charge of Cisco's security and anti-spam product families.

At Juniper, he will report to Mark Bauhaus, executive vice president and general manager, Device and Network Services.

"Nawaf's depth of passion, combined with his expertise in engineering and delivering operational excellence, will be invaluable as Juniper continues to lead the charge in architecting the new network built on simplicity, security, openness and scale," Bauhaus said in a statement.

The departures of Scheinman and Bitar follow a slew of executive exits at Cisco, including those of Tony Bates, now CEO of Skype, Susan Bostrom, who is stepping down as chief marketing officer, Jonathan Kaplan, Cisco's former consumer chief and former CEO of Flip camera maker and Cisco acquiree Pure Digital, Tierney, now heading up partner marketing efforts for Juniper, and Debra Chrapaty, the former collaboration chief who earlier this month bolted for Zynga.

Juniper, for its part, has been acquiring executive talent left and right, and along with Tierney, has reeled in a range of executives from some of IT's top names, including Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, HP and Oracle. Top Juniper executives confirmed to CRN that more big name hires will be confirmed in the coming weeks.