Cisco makes Mike Capellas a board director

"Curly" Capellas has just finished a stint at MCI, but before then of course he was a joint director of Hewlett Packard - Abelard to Carly Fiorina's Heloise.

Capellas (51), was the CEO of Compaq between 1999 and 2002, and presided over its acquisition by Hewlett Packard, then headed by Carly Fiorina.

Cisco said that Capellas has a customer centric focus and a unique balance of strategic insight, operational expertise and technology and financial knowledge.

And, so said John Morgridge, chairman of the board, Capellas is a strong asset to the Cisco board. We do not think he has been appointed to the board for his memorandum writing skills, formidable though they are. And he doesn't need to make any pledges to turn round Cisco in 90 days, because the networking giant is doing OK. µ