GO.com Names Rajiv Samant Executive Vice President and General Manager of Portal Business

GO.com Names Rajiv Samant Executive Vice President and General Manager of Portal Business

Rajiv Samant has been named executive vice president and general manager of the GO.com (NYSE:GO - news ) Web portal business, it was announced today by Steve Bornstein, chairman, and Steve Wadsworth, president, of GO.com. Samant assumes responsibility for the day-to-day management of the GO.com portal and for growing the business as the company concentrates on becoming the Web leader in recreation, entertainment and lifestyle. The newly redesigned portal will fully integrate unique, highly relevant features and functionality from the entire GO.com family of sites to deliver the best guide to the Web in the broad lifestyle categories on which GO.com will focus.

"Rajiv has established a strong track record delivering successful products to market. That background combined with his excellent technical and management skills make him the ideal executive to help lead our portal business into its next major phase, which is to be the leader in entertainment, recreation and lifestyle on the Web," said Bornstein.

"We are quite pleased that Rajiv brings his wealth of strategic and product experience to GO.com to direct the team building the new GO.com site. He is an exceptional leader who will deliver on GO.com's potential," said Wadsworth.

With more than 15 years experience in the high technology industry, Samant joins GO.com from IBM's Unix group, where he gained an extensive background in product development and technology. He served as general manager of IBM's Unix operating systems brand group, overseeing all operational functions including product development, marketing, -, finance, strategy and OEM sales. Samant helped formulate and launch IBM's Unix operating systems strategy (code name: Project Monterey) and the company's worldwide AIX 4.4.3 operating system launch. He also helped revamp IBM's ISV portfolio in the Unix server market.

Prior to joining IBM, Samant was employed at McKinsey & Company, Inc., where he worked with both domestic and international clients specializing in computer, GroupWare software, telecommunications and electronics.

He began his career at Intel's Unix Workstation Development Division as a product development engineer. He was also responsible for product development for Intel's real-time systems product line based on the X86 multi-processor architecture. He assisted in launching Release 3.0 of Intel's RMX operating system and its Multibus-II -bus protocol.

Samant holds a B.S. in mechanical engineering from the India Institute of Technology, an M.S. in computer science from the University of Wisconsin and an M.B.A. in corporate strategy and finance from MIT's Sloan School of Management.

-- Posted July 20, 2000

Source: Company press release