Business intelligence vendor, Business Objects, has named John Schwarz chief executive officer. Company founder, Bernard Liautaud, continues as chairman of the board and assumes the new role of chief strategy officer. Schwarz joins the company from Symantec Corporation, where he held the position of president and was responsible for leading the company's six lines of business. At Symantec, Schwarz played a key role in the recent combination of Symantec and VERITAS. Previously, he spent 25 years at IBM Corporation working in development, manufacturing, sales, and marketing. He was general manager of IBM's Industry Solutions unit, a worldwide organization focused on building business applications and related services for IBM's large industry customers.