Compaq's Former CEO To Join Intershop

Eckhard Pfeiffer won't be peddling PCs in his new gig: The former chief executive of Compaq Computer next week will join Intershop Communications, a developer of e-commerce software.

According to reports, Pfeiffer will become chairman of Intershop, a German company that has its headquarters in San Francisco, and will work with the company in an advisory role rather than a management capacity.

In April, Pfeiffer reportedly was forced out of the top job at Compaq by the company's board of directors following disappointing earnings.

Pfeiffer's new company, it's probably safe to say, operates in a completely different atmosphere: Intershop is not yet profitable. For the first half of 1999, Intershop reported $17.9 million in revenues, with a net loss of $8.3 million.

Intershop claims to have 20,000 sites running its e-commerce system, with customers that include Bell South, Hewlett-Packard, NatWest, PSINet and Ticketmaster Online. Intershop competes with e-commerce software from IBM, Mercantec, Microsoft and Oracle, among others.