MontaVista Software, Inc., the leader in embedded Linux® commercialization, today appointed Russell “Rusty” Harris as president and chief executive officer of the company, effective immediately. As MontaVista’s executive vice president of worldwide field operations, Mr. Harris has been responsible for the company’s record-breaking sales growth for the past two years. Prior to MontaVista, Mr. Harris held executive positions with BlueStar Solutions, Documentum, and EDS. He will be based in Santa Clara, California.
Mr. Harris succeeds Tom Kelly, who has been appointed as president and CEO of Epicor Software Corporation. Mr. Kelly will continue to serve as chairman of the MontaVista board of directors.
James Ready, member of the MontaVista board and CTO and founder of MontaVista, commented, “On behalf of the board of directors, we congratulate Rusty and look forward to his already proven leadership as our new president and CEO. Under Rusty’s direction, MontaVista generated record-breaking sales in 2006 and 2007, a remarkable accomplishment. His focus on results, his understanding of our customers’ needs, and his leadership abilities make him highly qualified to guide MontaVista’s executive team to build on our recent growth.”
“This is a wonderful opportunity to lead a team that has earned an international reputation for helping our customers get the most from open source,” said Mr. Harris. “MontaVista has more than 2,000 of the world’s top device designers and manufacturers as customers. The breadth of our customer base, the commercial quality of our products, and our team’s expertise in delivering unmatched service and support are the springboards we will use to help our company grow.”
Russell Harris biography
Mr. Harris has more than two decades of experience in the technology industry, with responsibilities managing sales, product development, and operations. He joined MontaVista Software in 2006 as executive vice president of worldwide field operations, with responsibility for managing all sales, customer support, and professional services worldwide.
Prior to joining MontaVista, Mr. Harris was the managing director of the Application Managed Services Division of ACS in 2004, joining ACS when it acquired BlueStar Solutions, where he was executive vice president of sales and marketing beginning in 2002. Prior to BlueStar, Mr. Harris was executive vice president for worldwide field operations for Documentum from 1999 to 2002. As an executive for Electronic Data Systems (EDS) from 1989 to 1999, he was one of the founders of the EDS High Tech Business Unit.
Mr. Harris earned a BS degree in Accounting from Indiana University.
About MontaVista Software
MontaVista Software, Inc. is the leader in embedded Linux commercialization. MontaVista helps embedded developers get the most from open source by adding commercial quality, integration, hardware enablement, expert support, and the resources of the MontaVista development community. Because MontaVista customers enjoy faster time to market, more competitive device functionality, and lower total cost, more devices have been deployed with MontaVista than with any other Linux