By Jamsheed Gandhi
Mumbai, Jan 27, 2010 1145 hrs IST

With the abrupt departure of Ajay Verma, director-channels & alliances at Symantec India, on January 6th, 2010, his post has been lying vacant till now. While company officials have yet to announce a replacement, industry sources estimate that his position and responsibilities would be divided up and shared by two or three key executives.

On contacting the company for finding out who would step into Verma's shoes, a spokesperson stated that they will be announcing his replacement this week.

Sources close to the company expected this re-organization as the company's channel operations are huge and each region within the country now needs a more concentrated and detailed attention to drive further growth and maintain market share against new entrants, both local and international.

Verma has had a fruitful stint of over six years with the company and was responsible for driving its products into the marketplace developing mindshare and acquiring customers. He has been a close confidant of Vishal Dhupar the current Managing Director, having worked with him in previous organizations and was a part of his core operations team at Symantec.

Doing the rounds in the industry is the name of Vineet Sood, the current Head for Alliances & SI Sales as a top contender for the job. Sood has over 14 years in various roles within the technology industry and has been with Symantec since the past five years. With the new organizational change he would share this portfolio with yet to be named executives.