ACADEMIA

Innovative Thinker Recognized as a Leading Evangelist for Grid Computing: United Devices (UD) today conferred its annual Grid Visionary Award on Frank Falcon of COLT Telecom in London who for the past decade has been a leading proponent and innovator in the field of grid computing. Falcon is a senior product manager within COLT's Managed Services team and is recognized in key international grid forums as one of the leading evangelists for the deployment of grid computing to create new innovative business models for enterprise customers and telecommunications companies. "Frank has long worked at the forefront of grid technology, creating a unique network-centric strategy that may very well revolutionize the world of enterprise application delivery," said Ben Rouse, chief executive officer at United Devices. "Our award was created to honor just such creative thinkers, those who have led the way in understanding, implementing and advocating grid computing as an enterprise platform. Frank Falcon certainly fits our definition of a visionary." Prior to joining COLT earlier this year, Falcon worked for two decades at British Telecom, where he capped his career as Grid Programme manager and was responsible for development of a commercially sound innovative strategy for services delivery via grid computing. He joined British Telecom in 1979 working on worldwide networks and moved steadily upward through a series of strategic development and design, marketing and business management posts. At COLT Falcon joins a company that prides itself on employing innovation as a fundamental driver. In particular, Falcon says, COLT has identified the trend towards Web-centric software delivery, epitomized by SaaS (Software as a Service), as an important part of the company's technology vision. He adds that customers need to work closely with a service provider who can help with the transition from today's IT-centric world to the Web-centric world of tomorrow, which COLT plans to deliver through managed grid services. Rouse presented the United Devices Grid Visionary Award to Falcon at its annual conference today in Boston. Falcon was among speakers at the conference, describing COLT's approach to managed services and Saas. Previous winners of the award include Jeff Mathers of Johnson & Johnson PRD and Manuel Peitsch of Novartis.