Here's an appointment that caught our eye: Industry veteran Christine Heckart has left her post as the general manager of marketing at Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT)'s TV, video, and music business (the IPTV, or Mediaroom unit) to join shared storage specialist NetApp Inc. (Nasdaq: NTAP), an important player in the development of cloud services environments and a doozy of a place to work, apparently. (See NetApp Tops Google and NetApp Supports FCOE.)

Heckart, who joins NetApp with immediate effect, will have already been exposed to the whole virtualization gig at Microsoft, which has been pushing a shared IPTV resource story since May last year. Now, though, she'll be knee-deep (or is that neck high?) in the whole cloud scene at NetApp. (See Microsoft's Virtual IPTV Math , Microsoft Announces Mediaroom 2.0, and Microsoft Mediaroom Tackles Tier 2 IPTV.)

But Heckart is probably best known in telecom circles for her time at Juniper Networks Inc. (NYSE: JNPR), where she held a number of senior positions, including head of global marketing, for three years before joining Microsoft in 2005. (See VP Jumps From Juniper.)

During her time at Juniper she initiated the cartoon ads campaign that attracted so much attention and eventually ran for five years before being axed in 2009. (See Juniper Kills the Cartoons! and Juniper's Cartoonist Isn't Bitter.)

Now, though, Heckart will find herself working with her former adversary, Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO), which has been working closely with NetApp and VMware Inc. (NYSE: VMW) to develop a Secure Multitenant Design Architecture, a pre-tested blueprint for a multitenant cloud that should make it easier for service providers to set up cloud services, or IT as a service (ITaaS). (See Cloud Watch: Piercing the Hype.)

Jay Kidd, NetApp's previous CMO, becomes senior vice president of Product Strategy and Development, Storage Solutions Group.

Microsoft had not responded to questions about a replacement for Heckart as this article was published.

— Ray Le Maistre, International Managing Editor, Light Reading