Cloud Computing on Ulitzer

”We’re very proud that Rackspace’s reputation for innovation, opportunity and growth are attracting top technical and business talent from industry players that have been there, and done that,” said Emil Sayegh (pictured below), General Manager of The Rackspace Cloud, as it was announced today that six new key personnel have joined the company to spearhead strategic technology efforts aimed to position the company for continued growth and technology leadership.



“We’re continuing investment to deepen our leadership product development bench to support our growth while expanding, and scaling our services,” Sayegh continued.

The CTO &-Founder of The Rackspace Cloud, Jonathan Bryce, is joining a very special "CTO "Power Panel" at SYS-CON's 4th Cloud Computing Expo, being held November 2-1, 2009 at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.

The Rackspace Cloud is the cloud computing division of Rackspace Hosting and the new "Rackers" (as staff are called at Rackspace) come from industry leaders and pioneers like Microsoft and Yahoo as well as the innovative entrepreneur Nick Longo who started CoffeeCup Software and the CTO of the forwarding thinking company Threadless.

The six are as follows:

Harper Reed, Nepholologist, The Rackspace Cloud, a legendary “geek” in the technology space and a longtime Rackspace customer as former CTO of skinnyCorp/Threadless, brings deep expertise in scaling massive infrastructure and supporting customers. Harper, known for his passion for technology and customers, joined The Rackspace Cloud to “work with some of the best technologists in the business and lots of servers.”

John Purrier, Director of Software Development, The Rackspace Cloud, will lead Cloud Files and Cloud Sites development, and help the company’s Microsoft technology footprint in general. He will manage development efforts for new cloud solutions at Rackspace. A Microsoft veteran, John formerly led the Microsoft Exchange development team. Prior to Microsoft, he served as CEO of Junqbox and Product Information Network and CTO of Global Market Insite. John joined The Rackspace Cloud because “he wants to define and build the next generation systems that will fundamentally change how computing is done in the future.”

Mark Collier, Vice President of Business Development, Rackspace Hosting, was formerly a senior executive with the Yahoo! Media division and managed the strategic partnerships for Yahoo! Music. Mark will lead Rackspace’s efforts to develop new partnerships for cloud, email and applications and managed hosting. Mark joined Rackspace to “let my inner geek sing -- playing with cloud computing all day.”

Michael Foster, Head of Cloud Engineering, The Rackspace Cloud, led major data center automation projects at Microsoft and held technical positions with many start-ups. He will oversee the company’s Technical Operations, DC Engineering, and Automation projects allowing The Rackspace Cloud to scale seamlessly. Michael joined The Rackspace Cloud because “I love to geek out on data centers in general, and I love large scale automation (and because I can enjoy Texas BBQ again!).”

Nick Longo, Chief Rainmaker, The Rackspace Cloud, is a successful serial entrepreneur who founded CoffeeCup Software, an award-winning website design software company who had amazing customer loyalty. He brings years of start-up experience and innovation to his new role directing web marketing, and community centered activities. Nick joined The Rackspace Cloud because “I wanted to work with the smartest people in the world to do something great, and the transition made perfect sense given the SaaS Cloud will overtake all downloadable software very soon!”

Rick Clark, Cloud Servers and Slicehost Development Leader, The Rackspace Cloud, was formerly Engineering Manager at Canonical, the company that produces the popular open-source Linux distribution, Ubuntu. While at Canonical, Rick managed Ubuntu Server, cloud/virtualization, and security. He will guide ongoing development for Rackspace's IaaS offerings, specifically Cloud Servers and SliceHost, and advance the company’s open cloud philosophy. Rick joined The Rackspace Cloud “for the culture, and to work with the best technical minds to develop technologies that solve deep customer problems in new and creative ways.”