Scientific
Applications:
PLATFORM APPOINTS IAN BAIRD TO LEAD GLOBAL
MARKETING & SALES OPERATIONS
Distributed, grid computing
leader strengthens commitment to OGSA and
commercial grid computing
Adoption.
Strengthening its commitment to drive Grid standards
efforts and collaborative
industry partnerships, Platform Computing Inc has
named Ian Baird as vice
president of its recently expanded Marketing and Sales
Operations division.
Adding to his existing responsibilities as Chief Business
Architect, Baird
will lead Platform's global marketing strategy, including
pricing,
communications, competitive analysis, mergers and acquisitions, sales
training
and sales information management.
Baird is an acknowledged
Grid computing industry expert. In addition to
spearheading Platform's Grid
strategy, Baird, who is a member of the Global
Grid Forum (GGF) Steering
Committee, will continue to help accelerate Grid
standards development
efforts, leading Platform's involvement in the
development of the Open Grid
Services Architecture (OGSA).
The OGSA is a set of technical
specifications to define a common framework
that will allow businesses to
build Grids over a network, forming the basis
for commercial Grid deployments
and interoperable commercial technologies.
Initial proposed technical
specifications for the OGSA have been developed by
the Globus Project and IBM,
and are being put forward at the GGF for
discussion, refinement, and eventual
standardization.
In his new role, Baird will work closely with key
partners such as Dell, the
Globus Project, HP, IBM and SGI, to lead the
development of co-marketing
programs to drive commercial acceptance and
adoption of Grid computing. Over
the past year, Platform has signed global
Grid computing agreements with the
major system vendors to market and deploy
integrated Grid computing solutions
to joint customers across the financial
services, government, life sciences
and manufacturing industries.
"Industry standards are critical to Grid adoption and success, paving the
way
for interoperability and providing the collaborative context for partners
to
work together," said Baird. "Platform is committed to finding new ways to
serve our customers together with key industry partners and prepare them for
the next evolution of Grid computing."
Baird sits on the Steering
Committee of the GGF, an organization whose mandate
is to promote and develop
common approaches and shared solutions through
consensus-based standards. He
was also president of the New Productivity
Initiative (NPi), a vendor-backed
Grid standards organization, and led the
merger with the GGF in April 2002.
This created the largest industry-supported Grid organization worldwide, aimed
at driving Grid computing to the
next evolution of its development in the
enterprise.
"Ian's commitment to the standards effort and to
accelerating Grid computing
are well-known in the industry," said Robert
Gordon, president and CEO,
Platform Computing.
"As the leading
independent commercial Grid solutions and services provider,
Platform is fully
committed to the development of OGSA and is actively
participating with GGF,
Globus, IBM and other partners in the standards
development process."
Prior to joining Platform, Baird was senior vice-president at BCE Emergis,
a
provider of business-to-business e-commerce services, where he was
responsible
for marketing, sales and operations for global Retail,
Distribution &
Transportation industries. Before BCE Emergis, he was publisher
and general
manager of Southam Newspapers, a national Canadian media chain.
Baird also
acted as executive director of a business development and venture
capital
center.
About Platform
Platform Computing provides
distributed and Grid computing solutions that help
enterprises effectively
connect, measure, manage and optimize their enterprise
resources. Platform's
integrated desktop to Grid software solutions are used
by over 1,500 customers
worldwide in the financial services, government, life
sciences and
manufacturing industries to deliver higher quality products and
services,
improve business performance and maximize the return on IT
investments.
Founded in 1992, Platform has strategic relationships with Apple, Dell, HP,
IBM, SAS and SGI, and the industry's broadest application integration
support.
http://www.platform.com
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