OREM -- Robert J. Frankenberg, a longtime executive with Hewlett-Packard and a former chairman, CEO and president of Novell, was named Tuesday as the new chairman of the board for PowerQuest Corp.
Frankenberg led Novell through a major strategy change from 1994 to 1996 but has largely been out of the public eye for some time."I'm not really back from anything," Frankenberg said Tuesday on the heels of a board of director's decision to place him in power in one of the fastest-growing software companies in the nation. "I never left. I love it here."
Frankenberg is taking on tasks similar to those he's undertaken in the past, working as the visible company man with shareholders, industry big guns and possible financiers.
He won't say whether he's been hired to help make PowerQuest a publicly held company.
"The bottom line is we're not commenting. We have not filed," said Eric Ruff, CEO of PowerQuest. "Bob Frankenberg has been through this before, but it's not necessarily a precursor to our plans."
Ruff said Frankenberg was hand-picked and deliberately sought after to chair the board for PowerQuest, whose sales topped $51 million last year. "We are delighted to be able to attract Bob. We went after him because of his technical understanding, his expertise. I couldn't be happier."
Frankenberg said he is impressed with PowerQuest as a company and as a management team.
"This is not just a flashy idea. PowerQuest has real underpinnings. They have an incredibly talented management team that has made enormous progress in delivering storage management capabilities to both the corporate and the consumer market. They have a talented set of engineers who create great technology. PowerQuest is in an exciting market position, and it will be rewarding for me to contribute to the company's continued success."
PowerQuest was named in October 1998 and again in November 1999 by Gov. Mike Leavitt and The Mountain West Venture Group as Utah's fastest-growing company. World Trade Magazine ranked the Orem company No. 1 on the list of the top 100 fastest-growing high-tech exporters.
Newsweek called PowerQuest Utah's hottest high-tech company when the magazine recognized the Wasatch Front as an up-and-coming high-tech center area in November 1998.
PartitionMagic 5.0 received the "Product of the Year 1999" award from PC Guide-Professional Computing in Switzerland in the January/February issue, and PartitionMagic 4.0 has been named by Windows magazine as one of the best software utilities.
Editors of the Chip magazine in Germany named SecondChance 2.0 the "Product of the Month" in December 1999.
PowerQuest is based in Orem and has offices in London, Germany and China.