An Indian American has been appointed president and chief executive officer (CEO) of a high-performance networking solutions company whose sales amount to more than a billion dollars. Piyush Patel, 43, who most recently served as the company's senior vice president, is now CEO of Cabletron Systems Inc., headquartered in New Hampshire.

Patel, formerly CEO of YAGO systems, a closely held company that Cabletron acquired in 1998, succeeds Craig R Benson who cofounded Cabletron in 1983 and helped the company achieve $1.4 billion in sales, according to a company press note.

``I believe it is time for me to step aside and turn the reins over to someone who can lead the company into the new millennium,'' Benson, who rejoined the company in 1988, said. ``Piyush Patel is that person. He brings demonstrated technology leadership from YAGO, a customer focus and a West Coast entrepreneurial spirit,'' he said.

Patel said his goal was to expandCabletron's leadership in the enterprise and aggressively expand efforts in new growth markets, including service providers and the market for converged voice, video and data networking solutions. ``I share Craig's passion for the customer and will continue the growth initiatives we outlined under Project Ignition,'' he said.

As vice president of engineering, Patel led Cabletron's research and development team and has been instrumental in shaping the company's strategy for new growth markets, including the service provider market. Most notably, Patel was responsible for the successful development, marketing and sales of the SmartSwitch Router, which is currently said to be the top product in Layer 3 LAN (Local Area Network) switching for ports shipped.

Over the past 20 years, Patel has served in various technical and managerial capacities at different companies, including Intel, Sun Microsystems, MIPS Systems, QED and YAGO Systems.

Patel, who has a masters in computer engineering from the University ofWisconsin-Madison, had a key role to play at these companies in strategic marketing and business development, as well as a leadership role in the development of key microprocessors, including Intel's x86 and related chips and Sun's UltraSparc processors, the note said.