PopCap Hires Apple, Microsoft Vet As VP Of Engineering

Casual games developer PopCap Games (Bejeweled, Peggle) has announced that it has hired Microsoft veteran Martin Gannholm to the newly-created position of vice president of engineering. Gannholm spent four years as a senior member of Microsoft Corporation's business software division, most recently as architect and group program manager of Microsoft Office Live. In the 1990's, Gannholm was senior engineering executive and co-founder of Net-It Software and Allegis Corporation, internet start-ups focused on online document publishing and enterprise software, respectively. He began his career at Apple, beginning at the company's localization facility in his native Sweden. During his career with Apple, he held senior engineering positions with Apple's HyperCard and Newton divisions, and was one of four core team members on the Newton's development. PopCap CEO David Roberts, to whom Gannholm will now report, commented, "We're delighted to have Martin joining our management team and overseeing our engineering efforts, which are far-flung and ambitious. Martin will oversee a single organization comprising multiple teams, responsible for a quickly expanding portfolio of technology. From providing game integration into new environments and platforms to creating solutions for new Web- and intranet-based initiatives, Martin's group will steer PopCap's technological future in many key respects."