Chris Cornelius, Sun

Sun staying at the front of technology developments.

ACN: What's your big focus going to be for this autumn in the Middle East?

CC: Sun will be busy this Autumn driving our Blades business - the first-ever system to combine Solaris, Linux, Windows, and VMware running on single and multi-core processors by Sun, AMD, and Intel, in one chassis.

ACN: What are the big issues you see in the regional enterprise IT sector?

CC: The IT industry is growing rapidly in the region, and with every growing industry comes instability, and a shifting workforce. Getting and retaining the right people is a challenge.

ACN: What are the hot technologies that are shaping enterprise IT trends?

CC: Power, space and air-conditioning was is becoming more and more important as real estate prices increase - it is becoming a deciding factor for IT datacenters. Sun has been a leader in the Eco Systems technology development and has spent many R&D dollars to develop top Eco technologies.

Another "technology" we will continue to focus and build on is the Open Source initiative. "Open for Business" is one of our themes for FY08, and this is meant literally and figuratively. The open source initiative has also expanded to our hardware technologies.

ACN: How can enterprises maximise their it ROI?

CC: The enterprise should look at initiatives like Virtualisation to maximise its IT productivity which will lead to cost savings. Many or most enterprises have purchased different servers and storage through the years, and although some of these systems are older, they could still deliver performance and usability.

ACN: Why should CEOs care about IT?

CC: IT has grown to be an integral part of any successful business. Show me a mission critical business that runs without IT? CEO's should care about IT because they can make mission critical business decisions obtained from the data out of their datacenters, drive efficient businesses and in the end
be profitable.