Software AG hires execs

Officials at Software AG Inc., a developer of Extensible Markup Language-based technologies, have appointed two new executives in an effort to expand and strengthen the company's presence in the federal market.

Haskell Mayo, previously the senior vice president of sales and marketing, has been named president of North American operations. George Alber, a former MCI official, has been selected to be vice president of federal technology and markets.

Although the company is headquartered in Germany, it has had a U.S. headquarters in Northern Virginia for decades. Mayo described it as "essentially an American company with shareholders in Germany."

He said he believes that the company's focus on XML as a means to build a bridge between legacy systems and newer technologies is a smart strategy for the future.

"In much of the integration that's going on [in agencies], people are extracting data from mainframes," Mayo said.

Alber was vice president of Internet customer service and executive sales director at MCI.