Computer Associates has hired former Novell CTO Alan Nugent to lead its Unicenter business, CA said late Wednesday, ending speculation about which software company the executive had jumped to.

Nugent's appointment as senior vice president and general manager of Unicenter comes as CA, in Islandia, N.Y., plans a restructuring of its business units to focus on greater accountability, it said. Unicenter is CA's largest business unit, covering infrastructure management products.

Nugent last week announced that he was leaving Novell to head up a software business at another IT vendor, just days ahead of Novell's BrainShare user conference. Nugent's exit follows the November departure of Novell vice chairman Chris Stone.

As CTO and senior vice president at Novell, Nugent helped lead its move into open source and identity-management driven products, CA said. Previously, he was chief technologist and chief software architect for BellSouth, working on Internet and e-commerce issues, enterprise application architecture and integration.

His background will be key to leading CA's Unicenter division, CA said.

Nugent will start in his new position on April 8 and report to CA's executive vice president of products, Russell Artzt, CA said.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.