Lotus hit by resignations

A trio of senior executives is leaving Lotus Development Corp., including Deborah Besemer, the person who ran the software company's sales operations.

A Lotus spokesman declined to comment on Besemer, who was the company's executive vice president of worldwide field operations.

Separately, the company confirmed the departure of Joseph Forgione, vice president of business development and planning for the Internet applications division; and Nina McIntyre, general manager of the Organizer product group and calendaring and scheduling division.

Forgione was responsible for the business relationship side of Lotus' recently unveiled eSuite, code-named Kona, a set of Java-based software products aimed at the network computer market. He helped to promote eSuite with OEMs and strategic partners, said a Lotus spokesman.

Before his stint at Lotus, Forgione was co-founder and senior vice president of HyperDesk Corp. in Westboro, Mass. Lotus officials did not say where Forgione would be working next.

McIntyre, who came to Lotus in 1989 from Atex Media Solutions Inc. in Bedford, Mass., will join Invention Machine Corp. in Boston as the organization's chief operating office.

Management turnover is not unusual at Lotus. Moreover, the company has been doing well and there was no indication that the resignations were related. The last time Lotus endured a big wave of resignations was the early winter of 1996, when many senior executives cashed in their stock bonuses following the company's acquisition the prior summer by IBM.

"McIntyre's a long-time Lotus person, and there's probably a certain amount of those guys who have just been looking around for the right opportunity," said Chris LeTocq of Dataquest.

Still, the loss of Besemer comes at an especially inopportune time for the Cambridge, Mass-based company, as it gears up for another offensive against Microsoft Corp. in the office-suite wars. Besemer, one of the more highly regarded executives at Lotus, had been instrumental in developing the company's service and support infrastructure.

"She was pretty important, a big player," said a former senior manager "Can they survive it? Yes, but she's clearly been a significant player from pre-IBM up until now."