Platform Computing announced the appointment of Jim Mancuso as vice president of financial services for North America based in New York City, and Charles Jarvis as the vice president of financial services for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, located in London.

The hiring of Mancuso and Jarvis is the latest in a series of investments designed to further bolster Platform's position in grid computing for the financial services market. The company has adopted a vertical model, with a team of specialists dedicated to providing personalized services and support to customers in financial services. This team has doubled in the last six months, and with the addition of Mancuso and Jarvis, has focused on creating a group of professionals with extensive experience in financial service applications and in grid computing.  

"The success of the vertical model can be seen in the increased adoption of Platform's grid in the financial services industry. Platform has steadily increased its install base, shipping more than 50,000 units of our grid software to our major customers," said Mancuso. "It's clear that there's a strong need in the market for well-constructed grid options. I'm looking forward to the challenges of providing software and support services that are best suited for our customers."

Mancuso, formerly with CorrectNet as senior vice president of sales and marketing, has substantial experience in growing companies. While at CorrectNet, he was responsible for a tenfold increase in sales, transforming the company into the dominant technology vendor for the alternative investments industry.

With more than 20 years of international sales and marketing experience at technology firms, Jarvis is well- positioned to lead Platform's financial services business in Europe, Africa and the Middle East (EMEA).  Before arriving at Platform, he served as the vice president of sales and business development for Tangosol Inc., a leading data grid software vendor. While at Tangosol, Jarvis successfully built the EMEA operations from the ground up. Jarvis' early career included more than a decade living and working in Asia.

Platform achieved unprecedented growth in financial services in FY'07 through customer acquisition, expansion at existing customer accounts, and now the addition of key senior executive sales leaders. "In EMEA, Platform Computing has increased its team by over 300 percent, which enables us to continue to provide exceptional service and support to our customers despite our rapid growth in this market," said Jarvis. "I'm anticipating excellent collaboration with our customers such as Société Générale, BNP Paribas and Sal Oppenheim."

In Japan, Platform Computing is led by managing director and president Hiromitsu Komatsu, who has more than 15 years of senior sales and management experience, as well as expertise in selling enterprise solutions.

In addition, the release of Symphony 3.1 represents Platform's dedication to producing grid software tailored specifically to the needs of its financial services customers. Released in February, Symphony 3.1 provides a host of utility computing enhancements designed to make resource-sharing and cycle scavenging even more efficient, while also respecting the priorities of resource owners. This software release also includes enhancements in monitoring, reporting and utility billing, and supports all leading operating systems. Symphony 3.1 enables an extremely low-latency computation environment for the financial services market -- 10 to 20 times faster than other solutions -- providing a significant competitive edge to Platform's customers.

"Platform Computing has solidified its commitment to our financial services customers by placing experts at the head of a carefully selected team of dedicated professionals," said Songnian Zhou, CEO of Platform Computing.  "Our team, combined with our deep product offerings, demonstrates our leadership in grid computing for financial services."

About Platform Computing

Platform Computing is the leading systems infrastructure software company that accelerates applications and delivers IT agility for increased business performance and reduced cost. Founded in 1992, Platform is a pioneer in HPC, cluster and grid computing technologies. Platform has over 2,000 global customers and strategic relationships with Dell, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Red Hat and SAS, along with the industry's broadest support for third-party applications. For more information, please visit www.platform.com.

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