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Pascal Cagni, who has also held sales positions at Software Publishing Corp and Compaq, takes over as European vice president this week.

As vice president of consumer products at Packard Bell, Cagni helped the company capture 12% of the consumer market in Europe, Apple said.

"Pascal has a successful

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track record of growing significant market share and providing excellent leadership to his teams," said Mitch Mandich, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide sales.

His appointment follows the departure of Diego Piacentini at the end of March.

Piacentini resigned in late January - for "personal reasons" unrelated to last year's turmoil in Europe, said Apple at the time.

In December last year, the company axed the majority of its UK marketing department after pressure from the US on Apple Europe to cut costs.

This followed the public relations debacle of the on-again, off-again cancellation of Apple Expo in London, which had been planned for last month.

The two events were seen by observers as evidence that Apple was increasingly centralising its operations around its Cupertino HQ and taking autonomy away from regional divisions.

Stuart Price
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