MontaVista has hired veteran computer industry executive Thomas F. Kelly as president, CEO, and chairman of its board of directors. Kelly replaces MontaVista founder James Ready, who remains with the company as CTO, and who will retain a seat on its board of directors.

Kelly has 26 years of executive experience highlighted by having led several companies through the process of being acquired. As EVP of Frame Technologies in the 1990s, he had “a lead role in reorganizing and refocusing the company” prior to its acquisition by Adobe, according to biographical information at Epicor, an ERP (enterprise resource planning) company whose board Kelly sits on.

More recently, Kelly led business automation software house Blaze to a successful IPO, and subsequent acquisition by Brokat Information Systems. Most recently, he served as CEO of IT outsourcing firm BlueStar Solutions during its acquisition by Affiliated Computer Services.

Kelly also previously served as chief operating officer for chipmaker Cirrus Logic, and chief financial officer of Cadence Design Systems. He has a B.S. in economics from Santa Clara University, where he serves as a Board Fellow.

Kelly stated, “I am excited to be part of the MontaVista Software organization with its market leadership position, tremendous market growth, and solid financial condition. MontaVista Software is the leading embedded Linux software company in the world, with a strong tradition of applying innovation and ingenuity across today's mobile, embedded and telecommunications markets.”

MontaVista in January confirmed rumors that it had initiated a CEO search and that Ready would assume the role of CTO (chief technology officer). The company has declined to comment on rumors that it may be acquired.

MontaVista late last month issued its first press release of 2006. The release touted the broad hardware support offered by MontaVista's Linux 2.4 and Linux 2.6-based commercial Linux distributions.

 
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