OpenSales fills key management roles

OpenSales has hired a chief financial officer and a host of other new executives to bolster its open-source e-commerce software business, the company will announce tomorrow.

OpenSales' first CFO, Christopher Schilling, was founder of the mezzanine finance group at Banc of America Securities, the company said.

In addition, the company's new vice president of worldwide sales is Jennifer Cooper, who has worked at IBM, Oracle, VXtreme and most recently nCommand. Karen Varnado, an executive at IBM, Ziff-Davis and Oracle, will become OpenSales' vice president of business development.

OpenSales two weeks ago received a $10 million investment from Idealab Capital Partners and Sanchez Capital Partners. The company's product, AllCommerce, is expected to debut by the end of the month, said spokesman Paul Carlstrom.

AllCommerce, which competes with e-commerce software from the likes of Intershop, is designed to handle Web site content as well as product pricing, inventory and ordering.

Open-source software may be modified and redistributed by anyone. OpenSales decided to release its software under the open-source General Public License in an effort to encourage open-source programmers to improve the product. OpenSales plans to make money through customization, management, consulting and other services related to the software.

The Linux operating system is the best-known example of open-source software. OpenSales' software will run on Linux, Windows NT, and Unix, the company said.