Sales Push

April 09, 2007 (LBO) – Open source middleware company, WSO2 founded by a Sri Lankan, is ratcheting up its marketing efforts in the United States and Europe after developing its own products, the company said. œWe’re at the point where we have passed the research stage and are now building markets, declared said Sanjiva Weerawarana, CEO and founder of WSO2. œWe expect to hire more people and spend more money on marketing efforts.

The company hired a full-time marketing specialist to spearhead the efforts.

The company said industry veteran Jim Hogan, a former IBM sales executive, has joined the company as vice president of business development, the first sales and marketing executive to join WSO2.

œJim will take on all the business development in the US, which I had been handling from here till now, Weerawarana said. œTo reach the US and European markets we need a physical presence there to talk actively to clients on a day-to-day basis, which is difficult to do from here.

WSO2, which has operations in Sri Lanka, the United States and United Kingdom, is an open source Web services company comprised of technology executives from IBM, Microsoft and Computer Associates