SANTA CLARA, Calif. - Nov, 3, 2005 - Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SUNW), today announced it has formed a technology advisory board (TAB), bringing together top Sun technologists and other luminaries, expert in a range of industries, to share their unique collective perspective at the forefront of technology. TAB will meet several times a year to discuss key technical topics and trends, partnering to shape Sun's technological vision for future development and product plans.
The role of a TAB member is to support Sun's CTO organization in making recommendations to the CTO and Chief Executive Officer, as well as to the Chairman of the Board and Sun's Board of Directors.
Members of Sun's TAB:
Dr. Greg Papadopoulos, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Sun Microsystems
As chief technology officer, Papadopoulos guides Sun's roughly $2-billion-a-year R&D portfolio with an eye toward doing things differently. A veteran of over 20 years in the high-tech industry (the past 10 with Sun), Papadopoulos received his Bachelor's degree in systems science from the University of California at San Diego. He holds master's and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT. He holds over 18 patents. Before joining Sun, Papadopoulos was Senior Architect and Director of Product Strategy for Thinking Machines. He was also an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT. He was a development engineer at Hewlett-Packard and Honeywell and co-founded three companies: PictureTel (video conferencing), Ergo (high-end PCs) and Exa Corporation (computational fluid dynamics)
Dr. Danny Hillis, Chairman and Chief Technology Office, Applied Minds, Inc.
Hillis is Chairman and Chief Technology Officer of Applied Minds, Inc., a research and development company creating a range of new products and services in software, entertainment, electronics, biotechnology and mechanical design. Previously, Hillis was Vice President, Research and Development at Walt Disney Imagineering, and a Disney Fellow. He holds over 50 U.S. patents. He received his doctorate degree in computer science from MIT and was appointed adjunct professor at the MIT Media Lab. While he was finishing up his degree at MIT, Hillis co-founded Thinking Machines Corp.
Dr. Dave Patterson, Professor in Computer Science, University of California at Berkeley
Dave Patterson is the Pardee Professor of Computer Science at the University of California at Berkeley, which he joined in 1977. In 2004 he was elected President of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), an 80,000-member professional society. He has co-authored five books, including two with John Hennessy on computer architecture, and he is one of the pioneers of both Reduced Instruction Set Computers and Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks. His research and teaching have been honored by awards from ACM, IEEE, and the University of California, and by election to the National Academy of Engineering. In 2005 he shared Japan's Computer & Communication award with John Hennessy and was named to the Silicon Valley Engineering Hall of Fame.
Naomi Seligman, Senior Partner, Ostriker von Simson, Inc. and Member, Sun Board of Directors
Naomi O. Seligman co-chairs the CIO Strategy Exchange which regularly brings together three vital areas of the IT sector: fifty invited CIOs from the largest multinational enterprises, premier venture capitalists and their "uncut gems" and establishment CEOs from major technology companies. (This is a joint venture with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.) The group purchasing power drives great access to suppliers since none of the members are vendors of computing or communications products and services. Previously, Naomi was a co-founder and senior partner of The Research Board, a private-sector institution sponsored by one hundred CIOs from the largest global corporations. (The Research Board was widely considered the premier private sector think tank dealing with information technology.) She serves on several Boards of Directors: Akamai, Dun & Bradstreet, Sun Microsystems and TellMe, and is also a Trustee of the Boston Science Museum. Naomi received a B.A. with high honors from Vassar College and a graduate degree from the London School of Economics.
Dr. Ivan Sutherland, Senior Fellow and Vice President, Sun Microsystems
Ivan Sutherland is considered one of the founding fathers of computer graphics and is the first person to successfully implement the concepts of both the GUI (Graphical User Interface) and Virtual Reality. He holds over 53 patents. Sutherland received his Bachelor's degree from the Carnegie Institute of Technology, his Master's degree from Caltech, and his Ph.D. from MIT. He served as head of Caltech's Computer Science Department from 1976 to 1980. After getting his Ph.D., Sutherland went to work for DARPA (the Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency), where he headed up their Information Processing Techniques office. He has won many awards for his work including the ACM Turing Award (1988); the IEEE Emanuel R. Piore Award; and the IEEE John von Neumann Medal. He is a Member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. Sutherland has been with Sun for over 15 years.
Dr. Steve Ward, MIT Professor of Computer Science and Engineering
Steve Ward holds Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Electrical Engineering and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from MIT, where he is Professor of Computer Science and Engineering. He holds more than 8 patents. His research and teaching have spanned the hardware/software boundary; his projects have produced a seminal microprocessor-based UNIX workstation, the processor-independent plug-and-play NuBus, and the Curl language for delivering applications as web content. His current research explores the use of goal-oriented programming models to enable adaptive, zero configuration application environments.
About Sun Microsystems, Inc.
A singular vision -- "The Network Is The Computer" -- guides Sun in the development of technologies that power the world's most important markets. Sun's philosophy of sharing innovation and building communities is at the forefront of the next wave of computing: the Participation Age. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the Web at http://sun.com.
Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Java, StarOffice, Solaris, and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries, exclusively licensed through X/Open Company, Ltd.
