FalconStor Hires 20-year CA Veteran As North American Sales VP

Quinn joined FalconStor on Monday after a four-year stint as the CIO of the Suffolk County, New York, Department of Information Technology. Prior to that, he spent 20 years at CA, most recently as that company's executive vice president of international sales and North American channel sales.

At CA, Quinn helped develop a single-tier distribution channel for Unicenter in the mid-1990s and helped oversee CA’s move to a double-tier distribution model after its acquisition of Cheyenne. The Cheyenne purchase gave the company its ARCserve data protection software.

[Related: New CEO, Sales VP Promise To Reinvigorate FalconStor's Brand, Technology ]

With that CA experience, Quinn said he comes to FalconStor with a "pretty good understanding" of what the channel is looking for.

"I think I understand how to see with a partner and through a partner," he said. "For FalconStor, with the ability to know all the different components, how to understand the products, how to sell the products, I think I can bring a lot to make the partners successful."

Quinn also said the burden is on him to work with Brendan Kincade, FalconStor's vice president of channel management and global alliances, to continue building the company's channel.

"I met Brendan over the last few weeks," he said. "I know he's recognized in the channel. He's done a great job with the program. It's up to us now to work with that program."

The fact that FalconStor is a channel-only company makes that job easier, Quinn said.

"At CA, I had a direct sales team," he said. "I don't have that here. There are no issues about who is on the named accounts list. I can work with my partners without looking over my shoulder. This is the only route to market that we have."

Greg Knieriemen, vice president of marketing at Chi Corp., a Cleveland, Ohio-based solution provider and long-term FalconStor partner, said that FalconStor and Kincade have been instrumental in the storage channel, and that he thinks Quinn should be able to do a good job of continuing the company's success.

"Having a sales VP with his record in the channel should be an advantage to FalconStor," Knieriemen said.

FalconStor has an established channel infrastructure in place, Knieriemen said. "But folks like Brendan can't do it on their own," he said. "They need the support of the sales teams. So it will be interesting to see what support Quinn brings to the channel."

Quinn replaces John Turner as FalconStor's vice president of North American sales. Turner, who spent only about 16 months at FalconStor, was located on the West Coast, while the rest of FalconStor's executive team were mainly based near the company's Melville, N.Y.-based headquarters.

Turner left FalconStor to travel less and to spend more time with his family, a FalconStor spokesperson said. The spokesperson declined to name Turner's new employer as no official announcement by that company has been made.