Rackspace Hosting (NYSE: RAX ) made an unexpected move last week when it hired Todd Cione to fill the newly created position of sales chief for the Americas.
It's not that Rackspace couldn't use a shot of adrenaline in the sales arm. The cloud computing leader's sales have lagged behind Street expectations in each of the last two quarters, leading to small but painful misses on the bottom line as well. As a direct result, the stock has missed out on this year's fantastic general market rally, losing about half its value year to date.
And there's nothing wrong with the talent Rackspace placed into this new position. Cione comes with 15 years of experience from highly responsible positions at Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT ) , most recently as chief operating officer of Redmond's Asia/Pacific operations. It's a big-name hire that should result in crisper execution across Rackspace's pan-American sales operations.
But Fool contributor Anders Bylund might have expected this move from a different part of his personal portfolio, namely big data manipulator TIBCO Software (NASDAQ: TIBX ) . In the video below, Anders explains why the Rackspace announcement took him by surprise -- even if it's probably the right thing to do.
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