Less than five months after his company, inventory management systems player Granite Systems, was acquired by OSS behemoth Telcordia Technologies Inc., John "Jay" Borden has quit his new post. He'll leave the company at the end of September.

Borden was made president of the Granite business unit following the acquisition in May (see Telcordia Shells Out at Last), but an internal memorandum issued recently to staff said Borden was to leave in the coming weeks.

And while it was initially suggested that Borden would stick with his new challenge, he says it's time for him to move on (see Telcordia Nearly Blew Granite Deal).

"I'm not a big company guy. I like building companies," he says. "I was at Granite for 11 years and saw it through the nuclear winter and out the other side again, and now it's time to take a break. I'm going to spend some time with my wife and daughters and do a lot of flying," says Borden, who was talking from an airfield before taking to the air.

"I agreed with Matt [Desch, Telcordia CEO] at the time of the acquisition that I would see the integration through and ensure that the Granite culture would survive. I also wanted to make sure that the Granite team was getting a fair shake and getting decent roles within Telcordia. That's done now."

Borden says he has "no fixed timetable" to take on a new job -- "I'm in no particular hurry to be a CEO again" -- but sees a return to the "entrepreneurial world" in the future, "and I know the telecom sector well."

Borden is credited with having built Granite into one of the world's leading OSS firms, and one of the two top players in the hot inventory management space (see Report Names Inventory OSS Winners).

His role will be taken by Mike Henderson, who joined Telcordia in June from ADC Telecommunications Inc. (Nasdaq: ADCT). He will oversee the integration of the Granite business into Telcordia's New Generation Systems business unit.

The senior man's departure, which was a main topic of conversation at the TeleManagement Forum's recent OSS exhibition in Tokyo, comes as little surprise to many. "Jay was an entrepreneur who started and led a small company to success. I’m sure his former staff and customers who signed on to the 'old' Granite will miss him," says Larry Goldman at OSS Observer.

"Telcordia clearly has a challenge to integrate a small company with a much different culture into a much larger company. That is a problem for any very large, established company acquiring a much smaller company," he adds.

Borden's departure will likely not do much for morale among the Granite staff, who have also seen the VP of sales for EMEA and Asia/Pacific, Nick Hewitt, leave to join another OSS vendor, Evolved Networks Ltd. (see Evolved Appoints VP of Sales).

And staff morale at Telcordia, itself now up for sale, is a major issue, according to the results of a recent staff survey (see Source: Telcordia Sends Out Feelers, Inside Telcordia's Discord , and Headcount: Morale Fatale).

That survey, taken before the Granite team joined the fold, showed that only 28 percent of staff at Telcordia rarely think about looking for a job at another company, and only 31 percent are extremely satisfied with Telcordia as a place to work.

— Ray Le Maistre, International News Editor, Light Reading