All change at Compaq

The European head of Compaq, Andreas Barth, became the latest in a stream of executives to depart the PC vendor since CEO Eckhard Pfeiffer was forced out earlier this year.

Word that Pfeiffer's fellow German had resigned from the world's number one vendor was released last week, as Compaq warned that it would post a loss of $237 million (£147 million), for the second quarter of 1999; analysts had predicted a profit.

The disclosure followed an earlier unexpected profit warning for the first quarter of 1999, which was closely followed by Pfeiffer's departure.

Subsequent to his departure, seven other senior executives have packed their bags.

Compaq also announced last week a widespread restructuring, which it said would save $2 billion (£1.2 billion) a year in operating costs. The company confirmed that the shuffle would result in job losses.

The business would be streamlined, with one sales and marketing team covering three product groups: the personal computer group; the consumer group; and the enterprise solutions and services group.

The third group thus merges the high-end computing and services businesses, which officially marks the end of the former Digital's "multi-vendor" services business. "We still do multi-vendor where customers ask for it, but is not something we are leading with," James Stevenson, Compaq's enterprise business chief, told PC Week.

The vendor also announced that it is building 17 call centres worldwide to help build Compaq's direct-sales business, which mimics the sales model of arch-rival Dell.