Simon Biddiscombe, the chief executive officer and president of QLogic, left his post to “pursue other opportunities” in an abrupt move that took many by surprise. Chief technology officer Jean Hu has assumed the role of interim CEO until a permanent replacement is found.

Stifel Nicolaus analyst Aaron Rakers thinks that Biddiescombe, who joined QLogic in 2008, may have been let go due to his performance at an investor conference that the company held earlier this week. He added:

“We would note that this follows the fact that QLogic’s fundamentals have continued to deteriorate over the past several quarters with the company reporting an operating margin of only 15.1 percent in its most recent (March 2013; F4Q13) quarter. … QLogic’s trailing 12-month revenue reflects an 18 percent yr/yr decline.”

QLogic’s adapter business is struggling, but it has one more ace up its sleeve. That ace is FabricCache, a relatively new solution that taps into the company’s homegrown Mt. Rainer technology, a revolutionary shared server-side SSD caching software. Wikibon senior analyst Stu Miniman commented, “QLogic is the leader in a stable FC market. QLogic has a promising offering with FabricCache; Wikibon would not expect any significant change in strategy as part of the executive changes.” Miniman elaborated on FabricCache in a March interview with SiliconAngle’s Kristin Feledy. He predicted that QLogic will implement it in an Ethernet solution, and notes the company’s role as an “arms supplier to the storage world.”

The storage world also had a major executive shakeup recently. IBM CEO Virginia Rometty reassigned Rodney Adkins, the former head of Big Blue’s Systems and Technology Group, after the unit reported a 17 percent revenue decline for the first quarter.