Professional Experience

Vice President Open Source and Standards IBM Corporation, Armonk, New York	January 1, 2005-Present
Executive responsible for driving and executing the cross-company business and technical strategy for open standards and open source as they relate to software, hardware, services, vertical industries, and emerging markets. In particular, helps move IBM from its traditional technical and intellectual property approach to one where business exploitation of standards and open source for greater customer value is paramount, especially in vertical industries and emerging markets. Chairman of the IBM internal Corporate Standards Advisory Committee and the Open Source Steering Committee. Works with partners, customers, government leaders and government agencies around the world to understand and adopt modern, business-savvy open strategies and policies. Leads the IBM team accelerating the adoption of the OASIS and ISO OpenDocument Format standard. Senior IBM spokesperson and evangelist for standards and open source, and a widely quoted and read global expert on these areas and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). Named in 2006 as one of Computer Business Review’s “Open Source VIPs”. Presented the keynote address “Open vs. Proprietary: Issues and considerations in the software world” at the University of Texas School of Law conference on the Frontiers of Intellectual Property.
Director Market and Product Management, WebSphere Foundation Software IBM Software Group, Somers, New York	2003-2004
Executive responsible for global software product and market management of the IBM WebSphere Application Servers, business integration products, legacy enablement tools, enterprise messaging (WebSphere MQ); and Eclipse-based WebSphere Studio development tools (until January, 2003). During this time IBM extended its application server and integration products marketshare lead over all competitors (see InfoWorld article: “Gartner: IBM maintains integration lead”). Worked closely with customers, architecture, development, and sales to formulate product requirements; ensure portfolio integration; create product strategy, packaging, pricing, and messaging. Drove the cross-brand Web services and Service Oriented Architecture marketing and strategy. Drove the WebSphere open source strategy and execution plan. Primary WebSphere executive responsible for interacting with the press and industry analysts on product plans, announcements, and IBM vision for IT middleware, service oriented architecture, web services, and relationship to on demand business.
Director Web Services Technology IBM Software Group, Somers, New York	2002-2003
Executive responsible for driving the nascent cross-IBM Web services initiative. Responsible for working across all IBM technology and marketing brand activities in order to continue and advance IBM’s leadership in providing Web services solutions, products, and services. Frequent keynote speaker on these topics at conferences around the world and frequently quoted in the press on both business and technical Web services issues. Recognized as an industry leader and Web Services visionary: featured in 2002 in the CNET Vision series and a Q&A in the Boston Globe.
Director e-business Standards Strategy/Web Services Strategy IBM Software Group, Somers, New York	1999-2002
Executive responsible for establishing and executing the global IBM-wide strategy for the development and promotion of key e-business industry standards including XML and Web services. Lead IBM executive for the creation of the multi-company Web Services Interoperability Organization and the UDDI.org initiative. Led internal efforts around formulating IBM’s current intellectual property licensing policy for standards activities. Member of the OASIS Board of Directors and Vice-Chair of the OASIS - United Nations/CEFACT ebXML initiative (1999 - 2001). Drove technical partnerships in the industry, including those with Microsoft that created the core Web services specifications.
Manager and Research Staff Member Interactive Scientific Publishing IBM Research, Yorktown Heights, New York	1997-1999
Managed the R&D team that conceived, developed, and distributed the IBM techexplorer software product for publishing scientific documents on the Web (one of the early Netscape plug-ins). This was written in C++ an ran under Windows and UNIX. Member of the W3C Document Object Model working group and co-author of the W3C Mathematical Markup Language, the first XML language standardized at the W3C. Co-author of the book The LaTeX Web Companion.
Research Staff Member Symbolic Mathematical Computation IBM Research, Yorktown Heights, New York	1992-1997
Member of the research team that developed the Axiom system for symbolic computation. Designed and engineered parts of the user interface, system interpreter, and mathematical libraries. Worked on the team that developed the A# compiler, an early object-oriented language with multiple inheritance. Expert developer in several languages including C++ and Lisp. Co-author of the book Axiom: The Scientific Computation System and various research papers.
Full-time Graduate Student and IBM Employee Mathematics Department Princeton University Princeton, New Jersey	1988-1991
Graduate student in the Mathematics Department at Princeton University in the doctoral program working in the area of algebraic geometry under the advisorship of Nicholas Katz. Participant in the IBM Resident Study program for post-graduate education.
Programmer Symbolic Mathematical Computation IBM Research, Yorktown Heights, New York	1984-1988, 1991-1992
Member of the research team that developed the Scratchpad II system for symbolic computation. Designed and engineered parts of the user interface, system interpreter, and mathematical libraries. Primary development environment was Lisp and C under AIX on the IBM RS/6000.
Programmer Internal Communications IBM Corporate Headquarters, White Plains, New York	1982-1984
Member of the team that developed algorithms and database applications to price-optimize the configuration of and vendor orders for the leased voice and data lines for internal IBM use. Primary development environment was PL/I with the IMS database on IBM mainframes.
Graduate Teaching Assistant Department of Mathematics Princeton University, Princeton, NJ	1980-1982
Graduate student assistant to professors teaching a broad range of undergraduate mathematics classes, including basic and advanced calculus, geometry, and linear algebra.

Education and Training

• Ph.D., Mathematics, Princeton University, 1992
• MA, Mathematics, Princeton University, 1982
• AB, Mathematics, Harvard College, 1980
• Valedictorian and Regents Scholar, Brewster High School (NY), 1976
   
• Strategic Leadership Forum, Harvard Business School (for IBM)
• Leading Product Development, Harvard Business School Executive Education

Selected Press Interviews, Profiles, Articles, and Mentions

• “Do Virtual Worlds Need Standards?”, PC World, June 13, 2007.
• “Open source directions: IBM’s Bob Sutor on best practices”, LinuxWorld, November 13, 2006.
• “Conquering Open-Source Fears”, Linux Executive Report, July 28, 2006.
• “A big shift coming for mobile applications”, BusinessWeek Online, July 26, 2006.
• “Google Joins OpenDocument Format Alliance, Backs Office Standardization”, InformationWeek, July 14, 2006.
• “IBM Exec Sees Open-source Boom in 2006”, ComputerWorld, January 30, 2006.
• “IBM taps open source to improve patent quality”, CNet/ZDNet, January 9, 2006.
• “Microsoft bows to Mass. with open records format: But rivals skeptical of software vows”, Boston Globe, December 15, 2005.
• Discussion session on Open Standards and Interoperability at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard Law School, October 27, 2005.
• “Free to right home: any of IBM’s patents. THE FOCUS: EDUCATION, HEALTH CARE”, San Jose Mercury News, October 24, 2005.
• “Meet the experts: Robert Sutor on the IBM patent commons initiative”, IBM developerWorks, March 29, 2005.
• “IBM Grants Open-Source Developers Use Of 500 Patents”, InformationWeek, January 11, 2005.
• Q&A: IBM’s Bob Sutor”, Web Services Pipeline (InformationWeek), July 6, 2004.
• “Interview: Bob Sutor on IBM’s ESB plans”, InfoWorld, March 18, 2004.
• “Big Blue’s Mr. Web services”, CNET, March 17, 2004.
• “IBM: Identifying Web services’ entry points and pain points”, SearchWebServices.com, March 16, 2004.
• “IBM’s Sutor: SOA Is So Necessary”, eWeek, February 25, 2004.
• “Interview: IBM’s Sutor on how SOAs fuel integration”, InfoWorld, November 6, 2003.
• “Plumbing Web Connections”, Harvard Business Review, September 1, 2003.

Selected Blog Entries

• “Microsoft says they will support ODF natively, join OASIS ODF committee?”, May 21, 2008.
• “Should we require full disclosure by standards participants?”, April 22, 2008.
• “Regarding OOXML and the need for change”, April 2, 2008.
• “Critical questions for national bodies considering OOXML/DIS 29500”, March 19, 2008.
• “The OOXML BRM: Secrets and statistics”, March 3, 2008.
• “Some metrics for measuring the success of the OOXML BRM”, February 28, 2008.
• “#2. If I were to build a virtual world - building up the basic model”, February 7, 2008.
• “Seven Challenges and Priorities for Virtual Worlds in 2008”, January 27, 2008.
• “While you're waiting, don't save in OOXML format”, January 23, 2008.
• “Ten challenges and priorities for free and open source in 2008”, January 8, 2008.
• “Ten challenges and priorities for open standards in 2008”, January 2, 2008.
• “Thoughts on digital reputations”, December 13, 2007.
• “Social networking and privacy”, November 13, 2007.
• “Standards: We need to talk”, October 17, 2007.
• “OOXML, the past. ODF, the future.”, September 4, 2007.
• “Will virtual worlds save the standards process?”, July 10, 2007.
• “ODF is not open source, but it is an open standard”, June 25, 2007.
• “#1. My virtual world requirements - The basics”, June 1, 2007.
• “Moving to the Mac”, May 5, 2007.
• “Why OOXML will ultimately fail”, March 20, 2007.
• “Avoid the single supplier document taxes”, February 28, 2007.
• “#0. My Second Life: List of entries in the series”, December 19, 2006.
• “Interoperability vs. intraoperability: your open choice”, December 6, 2006.
• “Migrating to ODF”, December 2, 2006.
• “Is Open XML a one way specification for most people?”, October 16, 2006.
• “Openness in action: Get used to it”, September 29, 2006.
• “Interoperability and substitutability”, September 5, 2006.
• “Adjusting to a more open world: Understanding and overcoming resistance to open technologies”, July 8, 2006. [podcast]
• “Google, Microsoft, spreadsheets, and a decade, plus or minus”, June 6, 2006.
• “Open Standards vs. Open Source, Part 4: The SOA Connection”, May 25, 2006. [podcast]
• “Open source is adoptable”, May 22, 2006. [podcast]
• “The World Is Clamoring for ODF! (YES!)”, May 16, 2006. [podcast]
• “Standards are an investment”, April 7, 2006.
• “Open Standards vs. Open Source, Part 3: Open Source Software”, March 17, 2006. [podcast]
• “Foregoing open standards might be a career limiting activity”, March 2, 2006.
• “Three words for openness: Transparency, Community, and Certainty”, February 26, 2006.
• “Open Standards vs. Open Source, Part 2: Software”, February 15, 2006. [podcast]
• “Open Standards vs. Open Source, Part 1: Standards”, January 25, 2006. [podcast]
• “Some Open Wishes for 2006”, January 13, 2006.
• “It’s not ‘standards or innovation,’ it’s ‘standards and innovation’”, January 4, 2006.
• “IBM Opening Remarks at the Open Forum on the Future of Electronic Data Formats for the Commonwealth”, December 14, 2005.
• “Factoring Standards”, November 30, 2005.
• “IBM Statement For the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Senate Audit and Oversight Committee”, October 31, 2005.
• “Grading open standards: what does purely open mean?”, September 20, 2005.
• “Myths of Technical Neutrality”, September 13, 2005.
• “Standards and open source: they are not unrelated”, August 16, 2005.
• “Open Document Formats: ‘Open’ must be more than a marketing term”, June 7, 2005.

Brief Biography

Dr. Bob Sutor is the Vice President of Open Source and Standards for the IBM Corporation. In this role he has the responsibility for driving and executing the cross-company business and technical strategy for open standards and open source as they relate to software, hardware, services, vertical industries, and emerging markets. Previously, Sutor was Director of WebSphere Product and Market Management. This included ownership of the WebSphere Application Server, WebSphere MQ, and the WebSphere Business Integration product lines, as well as web services and Service Oriented Architecture.

A 25 year veteran of IBM, Sutor worked for 15 years in IBM Research, specializing in symbolic mathematical computation and Internet publishing. He co-authored the books Axiom: The Scientific Computation System and The LaTeX Web Companion. Sutor was a co-author of the W3C Recommendation Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) as well as the W3C Recommendation Document Object Model Level 1.

In 1999 Dr. Sutor moved to the IBM Software Group and focused on jump starting industry use of XML. This led to positions on the Board of Directors of the OASIS standards group and the vice chairmanship of the ebXML effort, a joint OASIS/United Nations endeavor. Sutor then led IBM’s industry standards and Web services strategy efforts. Dr. Sutor is a widely read blogger and is a frequent speaker around the world on open standards, open source, web services, and Service Oriented Architecture. He is widely cited in the press and was featured in interviews in the Harvard Business Review, CNET, eWeek, and InfoWorld. In 2006 Sutor was named as one of Computer Business Review’s “Open Source VIPs”.

Dr. Sutor has an undergraduate degree from Harvard College and a Ph.D. from Princeton University, both in Mathematics.

This page was last modified on Thursday, June 5, 2008.