Sydney, Australia - 23 August 2008 - Sun Microsystems has appointed Gary O’Brien to the role of Chief Software Technologist for Australia and New Zealand. O’Brien will be focused on developing Sun's software and open source strategies across the region and will be responsible for communicating these strategies with partners and the market.

The Chief Software Technologist role has been created to complement Angus MacDonald’s Chief Technologist role. The main driver behind the creation of the new role has been the changing face of the software market. With open source software, high-performance computing and Web 2.0 now key drivers in this space, Sun wanted someone who could focus on communicating with partners, customers and prospects in this space.

In the role, O’Brien will be responsible for communicating Sun’s open source offering with partners and customers, as well as participating in, and with, open source communities across the ANZ region.

“Gary brings a wealth of experience and passion around Sun's software practice. He will be a great asset to the next stages of our open source and software strategies,” said Angus MacDonald, Chief Technology Officer, Sun Microsystems, Australian and New Zealand.
“Recent acquisitions of Innotek (VirtualBox desktop virtualization) and MySQL have strengthened Sun’s stack and open source drive, but also present new challenges in delivering it's overall software message and vision to the market. The appointment of O’Brien to this new role demonstrates Sun’s ongoing commitment to software and open source”.
O'Brien moves into the role from his former position as Software Practice Manager for Sun ANZ. In this role, O'Brien was responsible for driving adoption of Sun's software portfolio which includes the Solaris 10 Operating System, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), Sun Java systems, Sun Ray thin clients and Identity Management.
Mr. O’Brien said, “I am very excited to be starting this new role with Sun. Sun really values our open source communities and by creating this role we have shown our continued investment in and commitment to these communities. My role will be to provide clarity around open source and help to answer the questions that customers and partners have.”

O’Brien went on to say that, “Sun's ‘open’ strategy is about with making our software easily available for customers and for developers. This commitment involves open sourcing all of our software under open source licenses. This will make Sun's platforms more vibrant, more innovative and better quality than ever, solving our customers’ greatest challenges quickly and cost effectively.”

Since joining Sun in 1999, O’Brien has held a number of positions in the organisation. This includes Regional Software Practice Manager for Sun ANZ and Business Development Manager for Software Solutions for Sun APAC.

Prior to joining Sun, O’Brien held the position of Business Development Manager, Global Commerce Services, in Telstra. O’Brien brings with him more than 17 years’ experience in the Information Technology and Telecommunications (IT&T) industry.

O’Brien holds a Bachelor of Business and Electronic Commerce from Monash University and has completed the Advanced Certificate of Business Management from R.M.I.T.

About Sun Microsystems