Company veteran Richard Hume replaces the retiring Susan Whitney as general manager IBM has named a 23-year company veteran as the new general manager of its System x server business, replacing Susan Whitney, who retired after 35 years with IBM.Richard Hume, who had been general manager of operations for IBM’s Global Business Services unit, took over Whitney’s job Feb. 1. Hume has been with IBM since 1984.Whitney will work on occasional special projects for IBM in a consulting role, but “it was her own decision” to retire from her full-time job, said a company spokeswoman, denying a media report that Whitney was dismissed. System x is the brand name of IBM servers that run on the x86 processor platform. In its financial report for the fourth quarter of 2006, released Jan. 18, IBM reported that revenue for the Systems and Technology Group was flat from a year earlier at $7.1 billion. But within that group, sales of System x products rose by 7 percent. Technology IndustrySoftware DevelopmentSmall and Medium Business