SAN FRANCISCO - Blogging software maker Six Apart said Friday Chairman and Chief Executive Barak Berkowitz was stepping aside and would be replaced by Chris Alden, who had run the company's professional software unit.

Berkowitz had headed the company for more than three-and-a-half years after joining its board as representative of Six Apart's first outside investor.

Alden joined Six Apart in early 2006 through the company's acquisition of Rojo Networks Inc, a maker of Web syndication technology he co-founded and ran as chief executive.

Six Apart offers TypePad software used by popular Web destinations like celebrity site Go Fug Yourself or The Dilbert Blog, Movable Type, which many companies use to provide blogs to office workers and social network sites LiveJournal and Vox.

The company also provides blogging software that is widely used across Europe and Japan. Six Apart software is used by 40 million people a month, according to the company.

"As we've brought the business to scale, the board and I have been talking about my desire to take on a smaller role," Berkowitz said in a statement. "With the company so stable and on a great growth track, it's a natural time to make a transition."

Six Apart, which now employs 150 people worldwide, is based in San Francisco, with satellite offices in Tokyo and Paris.

For more than 20 years, Berkowitz has been an executive in high-tech and retail industries, working as CEO at innovative wireless software maker OmniSky, later acquired by EarthLink, and as general manager of Go Network, the Walt Disney Co Internet portal.

He also had held management positions at Logitech, Apple Computer and Macy's and worked as a technology consultant.

The company was founded in 2002 by husband and wife team Ben and Mena Trott, whose birthdays fall six days apart. Both of them turn 30 later this month.

President Mena Trott said in a post on Six Apart's corporate blog that Berkowitz will remain a company advisor.

Prior to Rojo, Alden was CEO of Red Herring Communications, publisher of Red Herring magazine, which he co-founded in 1993 to chronicle Silicon Valley entrepreneurialism and which grew to employ more than 350 people in its dot-com era heyday.

Until taking over his new role, Alden had been executive vice president and general manager of the professional unit of Six Apart, heading up the TypePad and Movable Type businesses.

One of Six Apart's latest products allows TypePad users to publish blogs from their Apple iPhone handsets.

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