WANdisco strengthens boardroom after winning largest big data contract

As well as securing two sizeable contracts, big data software developer WANdisco’s boardroom drama continued as it appointed a new non-executive director and reinstated its former chief finance officer, three days after he quit.

On Monday, the company appointed William Dollens, a partner of major shareholder Global Frontier Investments, as non-executive director with immediate effect.

Erik Miller, who amid the boardroom turmoil had decided to bail out in the first week after his appointment, has also been reinstated as CFO on an interim basis.

Miller’s resignation came amid the departure of chairman Paul Walker and non-executive director Ian Duncan, who left the company in response to the return of chief executive David Richards after a revolt by many major shareholders.

WANdisco, which specialises in data storage and cloud computing, also announced it had won a $1.5m big data contract with a large Oracle reseller, the biggest ever contract for its Fusion product, as well as a $775,000 contract to provide its multi-site application lifecycle management software to a global European bank.

Richards said: "The big data contract win is testament to the progress our product is now having across the market.

“The end customer is one of Oracle's largest big data appliance customers and joins a growing list of companies using WANdisco Fusion with Oracle big data appliance for critical analytics applications that require continuous availability across multiple locations.”

Shares in WANdisco were up 0.57% to 177.50p at 0829 BST.