The chief technology officer of Iona Technologies, the Dublin-based software firm that is undergoing a major restructuring, has resigned after just a few months in the key position at the company.

The departure of Mr Jim Boak coincided with a decision by the technology company to revert to its original strengths as it undergoes the worst period in its history.

Mr Boak, who joined Iona from a senior position at Compaq in September 2001, left Iona in late April to pursue other interests, the company confirmed yesterday. This was the same month that Iona announced a profit warning that led to hundreds of job cuts, although an Iona spokeswoman said this was unrelated to Mr Boak's decision to resign.

The loss of Mr Boak is a blow to Iona, which had hoped to use his experience of dealing with Microsoft while he worked at Compaq to seal a Web services deal with the world's biggest software firm. This deal would have enabled Iona to embed its software into Microsoft's Web services products in a move that would greatly expand Iona's market reach.

Iona's software enables companies to link together complex computer systems in order for them to undertake high-volume transactions.

Until recently Iona was focused on selling its software to large enterprises but Mr Boak was attempting to position Iona to break into the small and medium-sized enterprise market.

In a statement to The Irish Times yesterday, Iona outlined that it had changed strategy.

"The economic environment has changed. . . We are focused on our traditional installed base of larger enterprises," said the firm. "We continue to work closely with Microsoft on joint marketing and standards-setting efforts, and Web services inter-operability initiative but, at this time, we have no firm plans for sharing or combining our technologies."

Iona's decision to focus on its core market rather than to seek out new opportunities is hardly surprising given its current restructuring, which will see it shed at least 125 jobs.