Next Hires British Executive to Share President’s Duties

Next Computer Inc. said Wednesday that it has hired a British executive to serve as president and chief operating officer of the company, which was founded by personal computer pioneer Steve Jobs.

The executive, Peter van Cuylenburg, was a group director of Cable & Wireless, a British phone company.

Van Cuylenburg and Jobs will share a newly created office of the president at Next. The two will split day-to-day management duties at the company, which makes powerful desktop computers called workstations.

Jobs is Next’s chairman and chief executive.

Van Cuylenburg, 43, also will serve on Next’s board of directors.

Before working at Cable & Wireless, van Cuylenburg was a longtime computer executive at Texas Instruments Inc. He has experience in the same “object-oriented” software technology that Next uses.