Green brings over 20 years of industry experience to Sun and extraordinary insight into the evolution of developer platforms and enterprise software alike.

Effective immediately, Green will assume responsibility for the overall operational leadership of Sun's software division, overseeing the Solaris Enterprise System, including the Solaris Operating System, the Java Enterprise System suites, N1 management software, Sun Studio and Java Studio developer tools. In addition, he will lead a variety of industry-standards efforts and open source communities.

"We could not have dreamed of a more qualified candidate to deliver on our ambitious vision for Sun's software division," said Schwartz. "Not only is Rich a proven entity as a long-time former Sun employee, but he also returns to Sun with the rich experience he's retained through his most recent role as executive vice president of products for Cassatt Corp. Rich adds to an ever increasing number of past leaders trained at Sun who have returned recently to make valuable contributions to our future success."

"I am delighted to be returning to Sun at such an exciting time in the company's 24-year history," said Green. "I look forward to playing a leading role in the evolution of Sun's enterprise software products -- with a laser focus on continuing to build that business, as well as ensure its future."

In his recent role as executive vice president of products at Cassatt Corp., Green was responsible for leading the company's product strategy and development efforts. Prior to Cassatt, Green spent 14 years at Sun where he led a variety of software initiatives. Most recently, he served as vice president and general manager of the Solaris products organization where he led the development and marketing of key Sun technologies including 64 bit Solaris and Sun Clusters. Following that, Green was the vice president and general manager of Sun's combined Java organization where he led development, introducing business programs for J2EE, J2ME, JavaCard, and was responsible for the widespread adoption of J2SE via OEM bundling and web download programs.

Green was also Sun's chief Java advocate, playing an essential role in the company's negotiations leading to its legendary $1.6 billion settlement and 10-year collaboration agreement with Microsoft. In addition to his invaluable contributions throughout the antitrust case, Green also spearheaded numerous internal projects during his tenure with Sun including the development of such critical technological advancements as Java Studio Creator. Green was also instrumental in driving adoption for Sun's Java Virtual Machine software.