ATCA vs. Carrier Grade Rack Mount Servers - The Experts Square Off

Jeff Hudgins
VP marketing, NEI

Jeff Hudgins currently serves as the Vice President of marketing for NEI. In this role he is responsible for product management, field application engineers, marketing communications and public relations. For the past eight years, he has been leading the engineering teams and the corporate efforts in new technology areas such as ATCA, uTCA, PCI-Express, and NEBS compliant designs.

As an executive member of PICMG 3.X, Jeff is at the forefront of change and a voting member of the standards committee. In addition, Jeff authors a monthly column, Tech Score, for Internet Telephony magazine.

Sven Freudenfeld
Business Development Telecom, Kontron

Sven is responsible for North American Business Development for the Kontron AG line of AdvancedTCA, AdvancedMC, MicroTCA, and Pre-Integrated Solutions. Sven has more than 15 years of experience with voice, data, and wireless communications, having worked extensively with Nortel Networks in systems engineering, Sanmina-SCI in test engineering, and Deutsche Telekom in network engineering.

Sven earned his electrical engineering degree in Germany, and is Interim President and current Vice President of the Communications Platforms Trade Association.

Keate Despain
Sr Director of Product Line Marketing, RadiSys

Keate Despain is the Sr. Director of Product Line Marketing for the RadiSys communications business unit. He is responsible for the ATCA product line. Prior to joining RadiSys, Keate was the Director of Marketing for the Modular Communications Platform Division at the Intel Corporation. While in MCPD, Keate drove both the ATCA and Telecom grade Rack mount server product lines until he assisted Intel in selling the ATCA product line to RadiSys.

Keate worked at Intel for 11 years, prior to joining MCPD he was on assignment in Shanghai for Intel China establishing and leading the Digital Home Group’s Consumer Electronic focus in APAC. Prior to this assignment in DHG, Keate was a marketing manager in IPD/EIA for seven years. While in Embedded Intel® Architecture Division, he had various responsibilities across Communications Segment Marketing, Software Marketing, Product Marketing and Channel Marketing. Before joining Intel, Keate was a product marketing engineer in the Cellular Phone Division for Motorola China.

Keate has an MBA from Arizona State University and resides in Portland, Oregon.

Brian Carr
Strategic Marketing Manager, Embedded Computing, Emerson Network Power

Brian Carr is a Strategic Marketing Manager for the Embedded Computing business of Emerson Network Power, with a particular focus on communications servers and building blocks based on open standards such as AdvancedTCA, Carrier Grade Linux and Service Availability Forum. Brian brings together customer and application trends with next-generation technology advances to guide the company’s strategic ATCA roadmap.

Carr joined Emerson with its acquisition of Motorola’s Embedded Computing Group in January 2008. His 21 years experience in the telecom industry began in R&D at BT Labs, where he helped develop a network embedded voice services platform and was technical lead on several related application deployments. Carr holds masters degrees in Engineering from Cambridge University and in Information Technology from Essex University.

Austin Hipes
Director of Field Engineering, NEI

Austin Hipes currently serves as the Director of field engineering for NEI. In this role he manages Field Applications Engineers (FAEs) supporting sales design activities and educating customers on hardware and the latest technology trends.

Over the last eight years, Austin has been focused on designing systems for Network Equipment providers requiring carrier grade solutions.

Tom Bonds
Tekelec

Tom Bonds is the product manager for the NEBS server product line at Tekelec, the world wide leader in signaling equipment for telecommunications networks. In his current role, Tom has product responsibility for rack mount and blade servers, as well as Tekelec's Linux distribution, management software, and middleware.

In addition to 17 years of experience in various engineering, engineering management, and product management roles in the data communications and telecommunication industry, he holds a B.S.E.E. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and a Masters of Engineering from N.C. State University. Tom’s personal interests include involvement in youth sports, and he is currently serving as president of the charitable organization gssg-usa.org.

Erik K. Linask - Moderator
Group Managing Editor, Technology Marketing Corporation

Erik oversees the daily operation of TMCnet, which delivers news, information, videos, white papers, podcasts, and more to three million visitors each month. He is also a contributor to TMCnet as well as TMC’s IP Communications publications.

Prior to joining the TMC team, several years ago, he was Managing Editor at Global Custodian, a global securities services publication, where he also managed the magazine’s survey research. Erik began his professional career at management consulting firm Leadership Research Institute.