The president of a software company, John Thompson, is positioned as the favored choice of Obama for Secretary of Commerce after the resignation of Richardson, according to Democratic sources. Thompson is president of Symantec Corp, a security software popular among users for its Norton antivirus program. It was revealed late last year that Thompson, who was among the first executives in Silicon Valley to support Obama, was a hefty Dem fund giver.

The president appointed the governor of New Mexico for the post of Trade, but Richardson resigned on January 4 amidst an investigation about alleged favors given to a company during his tenure as governor. Richardson, a Hispanic politician, denied any illegal practice but said that the investigation could hamper his approval by the Senate. It has also been rumored that Richard Parsons, chairman of Citigroup, could be the new Secretary of Commerce after the resignation, but the executive is not interested.

According to Thompson’s biography available on the website of Symantec, he raised his company from “a small distributor of software for the consumer to a small global leader in security solutions, storage and management systems.” Thompson was a senior executive at IBM before joining Symantec. In 2002, former President George W. Bush appointed him a member of the National Advisory Committee to make recommendations on infrastructure security.

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Via The Huffington Post