[Techtaffy Newsdesk]

Dell has appointed John Swainson to serve as president, Software Group, effective March 5, 2012. Mr. Swainson will report to Michael Dell, chairman and CEO of Dell.

The Software Group will build on Dell’s software capabilities and add to Dell’s enterprise solutions capability. The Software Group will bolster Dell’s ability to execute in strategic areas critical to its customers.

Most recently, Mr. Swainson was senior advisor to Silver Lake, a global private equity firm. Prior to Silver Lake, he was CEO and director of CA, from early 2005 through 2009. Prior to CA, Mr. Swainson worked for IBM for more than 26 years, holding various management positions in the U.S. and Canada, including seven years as general manager of the Application Integration Middleware Division, a business he founded in 1997. During that period, he and his team developed the WebSphere family of middleware products and the Eclipse open source tools project. He also led the IBM worldwide software sales organization, and held numerous senior leadership roles in engineering, marketing and sales management.

Mr. Swainson holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the University of British Columbia, Canada.