Simon Phipps

Sun Microsystems Inc.

Presentations:

• (5240) The Adoption-Led Market

Short bio

Simon Phipps is the Chief Open Source Officer at Sun Microsystems, co-ordinating 
Sun's extensive participation in free and open source software communities and 
actively participating in the global conversation they express. Prior to this 
appointment he co-founded Sun's pioneering staff weblog facility at 
blogs.sun.com.

A computer industry insider of 20+ years standing, Simon has worked in such 
hands-on roles as field engineer, programmer and systems analyst as well as 
being involved at a strategic level in some of the world's leading computer 
companies. Fascinated by the idea of 'action at a distance', he worked with OSI 
standards in the eighties, on the first commercial collaborative conferencing 
software in the nineties, and helped introduce both Java and XML at IBM. He 
joined Sun in mid-2000.

He takes an active interest in several free/open source software organisations, 
including serving on the Advisory Board of the GNOME Foundation. He holds a 
degree in electronic engineering and is a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the 
British Computer Society where he is on the committee of his local branch.

Simon lives in the UK with his family but is based in Silicon Valley in the US. 
With membership of airline frequent flyer clubs thus taken care of, he is free 
to indulge in his favourite pastimes of reading, writing poetry, collecting 
music, taking photographs and playing with cool toys.