Brocade CFO Out, Former Foundry Finance Chief In

Fairfax was most recently Brocade's vice president of global services, a role he began in August 2009 after an eight-month stint as Brocade's vice president of business operations. He was previously vice president, finance and administration and also CFO of Foundry Networks before Foundry was acquired by Brocade in late 2008.

Brocade didn't give a specific reason for Deranleau's departure, except to say it was to "pursue other interests." Mike Klayko, Brocade's CEO, thanked Deranleau for his eight years of service to Brocade, and also saluted Fairfax.

"[Fairfax] has been a key member of my senior management team since the acquisition and I am confident that he will continue to help drive Brocade's vision of helping companies build cloud-optimized networks as our CFO," Klayko said in a statement.

Deranleau had been Brocade's CFO since 2006.

Aaron Rakers and Matthew Nahorski, analysts with Baltimore-based equity research firm Stifel Nicolas, wrote in a Thursday research note that investors might view Deranleau's exit as a negative, given Brocade's financial improvement in recent quarters.

The departure, the analysts note, also comes following the late May resignation of Tejinder Grewal, Brocade's former vice president of corporate development.

"These departures come after questions surrounding whether Brocade could be an acquisition candidate," the analysts wrote, referencing recent speculation that Brocade might be acquired by Dell or another vendor.