Borland Software on Tuesday named Tod Nielsen to be its chief executive officer (CEO), filling a vacancy left when former CEO Dale Fuller resigned in July.
Nielsen comes to Borland following a full tour of duty through the industry's major software companies. His most recent position was as Oracle's senior vice president of marketing and global sales support. Before that, he followed twelve years at Microsoft with a stint at BEA Systems, where he held the jobs of chief marketing officer and executive vice president of engineering. Nielsen came to BEA after it acquired his private company Crossgain, at which he served as CEO.
Borland's former head, Fuller, stepped down after Borland reported weak sales in its second quarter. Fuller had held the CEO job for six years and remains a member of the Cupertino, California, company's board.
Best known for its software development tools, Borland is struggling to hold on to its market amid intensifying competition -- particularly from Eclipse, an open-source Java IDE (integrated development environment) that offers similar functionality to that of Borland's JBuilder. This year, Borland joined the Eclipse Foundation's board, and is exploring how it can incorporate some of Eclipse's technology into its own software lines.
Borland arranged a high-profile debut for Nielsen: The newly named CEO is scheduled to deliver the opening keynote Tuesday at Borland's annual developer conference, in San Francisco.