Novell names new execs for America, Asia

Novell has promoted Troy Richardson to president of Novell Americas and hired Maarten Koster to be president of Novell Asia Pacific, the Linux and server software company said. Richardson, formerly president and general manager of sales for Novell's northeast U.S. region, replaces Susan Heystee. Heystee has become vice president and general manager for global strategic alliances, a newly created post.

Koster previously was director of IBM's Tivoli management software for the Asia-Pacific region. He replaces Bill Hewitt, who left the company earlier. Novell is restructuring to try to improve its financial prospects and to focus more on Linux and other open-source software.