Although its share price was rumbling around at the $25 mark yesterday, Compaq had some good news for its shareholders. First, it recruited a former Kodak executive, Jesse Greene, to become its chief financial officer, after a lengthy delay in filling the job after Earl Mason left last year. And, perhaps more significantly for Compaq, last week it also secured a big contract with the French Atomic Energy Commission to build an Alpha based supercomputer. No financial details of the deal were available. Greene was a senior vice president at the Kodak Corporation and was involved in acquisitions and strategic partnerships. Compaq has been attempting to head-hunt a replacement for Mason since April last year. Mason left following Eckhard Pfeiffer's unexpected departure as CEO last year. Compaq is readying itself for a major push with large clustered systems based on its Alpha microprocessor. At the same time, it is committed to developing Itanium-based systems, based on the rival Intel 64-bit architecture. Tomorrow, The Register has an interview with a senior Compaq executive who will outline the company's enterprise strategy. ®