PALO ALTO, Calif., Jan. 16, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As the need for highly specialized software solutions within the defense industry continues to grow, WSO2 announced today that Adam Firestone will oversee this emerging and critical sector of its business as the director of defense and government solutions. WSO2 also has rolled out a new white paper by Adam, which examines the role of software in democratizing the management and sharing of military information.
A former US Army officer and military IT executive, Adam has led the design and development of critical weapons and command and control systems, as well as spearheading the integration of open source software and principles within the defense enterprise. Adam joins WSO2 from his most recent position as principal systems engineer at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), based in McLean, VA. There, he was responsible for the design and implementation of service-oriented architecture (SOA) principles within existing and developmental military response programs, including a major precision-guided weapon and a portable integration platform for joint unmanned systems.
"We have known Adam for years and are thrilled to have him join WSO2 in delivering solutions to the government and defense industry," said Dr. Sanjiva Weerawarana, WSO2 founder and CEO. "Adam's extensive defense industry experience and proven success in implementing SOA solutions for the military are invaluable to supporting and expanding our customers in the defense and government sectors."
Solving Today's Defense and Government IT Challenges
The size, structure and culture of defense and government organizations often can present a barrier to new technical innovations. With the shrinking of defense budgets, WSO2's technology and tools offer this market an affordable, sustainable, open source environment. As director of defense and government solutions, Adam will help WSO2 work to develop new technology solutions designed to address the unique challenges facing today's military, intelligence and government organizations. He also will work directly with the WSO2 engineering team to ensure that general open-source product and technology roadmaps continually evolve to consistently meet emerging defense and government requirements.
"The rapid evolution of information technology over the past several decades has led to a seismic shift in the way military operations are conducted," Adam observed. "Working firsthand with WSO2's open source middleware, I've seen how it is an enabler for the cloud and information enterprise architecture vision set forth by department- and component-level CIOs. WSO2's software is nothing short of transformative technology for the government and defense industry."
WSO2 Publishes Whitepaper On Evolution of Military IT
To further demonstrate the global need for democratized military information management and sharing, WSO2 is also publishing a new whitepaper, "The Revolution in Military Affairs 2.0: Information Dominance and the Democratization of Information Technology." Authored by Adam, "RMA 2.0" is the first in a newly developing series of papers discussing software for the defense industry.
RMA 2.0 examines some of the key challenges that existing military information management policies and technologies have failed to address since the Gulf War. Significantly, even in countries with large defense budgets, the perceived time and expense of implementing information technology has often frustrated modernization efforts. The paper also explores how organizations can overcome these roadblocks and achieve military operational success in today's information age by:
- Pushing power to the edge.
- Promoting self-synchronization.
- Adopting lightweight and flexible open-source technologies.
The paper can be downloaded at http://wso2.com/whitepapers/the-revolution-in-military-affairs-2-0-information-dominance-and-the-democratization-of-information-technology.
About WSO2
WSO2 is the lean enterprise middleware company. It delivers the only complete open source enterprise SOA middleware stack purpose-built as an integrated platform to support today's heterogeneous enterprise environments—internally and in the cloud. WSO2's service and support team is led by technical experts who have proven success in deploying enterprise SOAs and contribute to the technology standards that enable them. For more information, visit http://wso2.com, or check out the WSO2 community on the WSO2 Blog, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and FriendFeed.
Trademarks and registered trademarks are the properties of their respective owners.
The WSO2, Inc. logo is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=16645