BlackBerry appoints ex-Sybase executive as chief operating officer

BlackBerry named Marty Beard as its chief operating officer on Monday, filling a position that had been vacant since November following a management reshuffle. Beard was most recently chief executive officer of LiveOps, a provider of cloud applications for customer service. Prior to that he was an executive of Sybase, an enterprise software maker that was formerly run by current BlackBerry CEO John Chen. BlackBerry said Beard in his new role would be responsible for marketing, application development, quality and customer care, among other things. Former BlackBerry COO Kristian Tear left the company late last year, shortly after Chen took the reins. Reuters