Avid Names Greenfield New CEO

Wade Roush 12/21/07

Avid Technology, the Tewksbury, MA-based maker of industry-leading tools for video, film and audio editing and 3-D animation, announced Wednesday that interim CEO Nancy Hawthorne (who replaced former CEO David Krall in August) has been succeeded by former GXS and Peregrine Systems CEO Gary Greenfield. Avid is widely considered by investors to have flubbed its acquisition of consumer video editing software maker Pinnacle Systems, and the company has been under assault lately by rivals with less expensive media editing technologies. Those factors, together with Greenfield’s background as a partner in San Francisco technology buyout firm Francisco Partners, have led several technology bloggers to wonder whether Greenfield’s appointment presages a move to sell Avid or take it private.

Wade Roush is Xconomy's chief correspondent. You can e-mail him at wroush@xconomy.com, call him at (617) 252-7323, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/wroush.