Big Switch Networks, an OpenFlow company bringing the
benefits of virtualization and cloud architecture to enterprise networks,
announced that Howie Xu has joined the company to lead the R&D
organization.

Xu was at VMware for nine years before joining Big Switch
Networks. He led VMware’s networking R&D team for the past five years and,
under his leadership, the team innovated and developed the industry’s first
Distributed Virtual Switch and collaborated with Cisco on Nexus 1000V.

He joined VMware in 2002 as one of the lead developers in
virtual networking. He is credited with co-inventing VMware’s Virtual Switch
and holds multiple patents in this area.

“Customers have a strong desire to see a different
network infrastructure and management paradigm after decades of living with the
status quo. Compared to server and storage virtualization, we have only seen
the tip of the iceberg for what is possible in networking,” said Howie Xu,
VP of Engineering at Big Switch Networks.

“We’re very excited to have Howie leading a
world-class engineering team that we’re continuing to grow,” said Guido
Appenzeller, CEO of Big Switch Networks.

“This intersection of virtualization and networking
is where the industry is headed, and the teams that are going to do well here
are those that can bring world experts from both virtualization and networking
industry together,” Appenzeller added.

Big Switch Network’s technical staff has doubled in size
this year. More than 70 percent of the team has at least one graduate degree in
CS; 50 percent of the team are former distinguished engineers, principal engineers,
senior staff engineers or faculty from leading universities.