Dipl.-Ing. Steffen Thoss

Responsible for the IBM Z Asia Pacific technical sales organisation. Leading a 75 people customer facing hardware, software pre-sales & services team. The team of technical sellers and Client Architects in ASEAN, China and ANZ is responsible for driving the journey to Hybrid Cloud for our enterprise customers. The product portfolio includes System Z, LinuxONE, RedHat OpenShift, z/OS, IBM zSoftware and IBM CloudPaks.

Leading a 100+ organization responsible for Linux on Z and LinuxONE evaluation and service. Delivery of enterprise ready quality for Linux on Z and LinuxONE for the IBM Z platform in partnership with RedHat, SUSE and Canonical. This includes System Test, Performance, Information Development and Customer enablement. Enablement of RedHat OpenShift for Z platform in cooperation with RedHat. Responsible for running the R&D System Z Datacenter supporting many System Z Software development projects.

Product Manager for the IBM Enterpr. Linux Platform. Direct responsibility for the following products: KVM for IBM z Systems, IBM z/VM, Linux on Z, LinuxONE and IBM Wave for z/VM. Help managing a multi-million dollar development budget inside an international team to generate a year to year double digit Linux platform stack growth. Develop offerings and products driven by customer sponsor user collaboration to gain full business benefit for them. Support enterprise customers to improve IT budget spending.

Leader for the IBM z/VM, Linux on System z and IBM Wave for z/VM product development team. Leading z/VM 6.3 product launch with a successfully product availability in July 2013. Support of zBC12 product launch with z/VM and Linux on System z. Support of first General Availability of IBM Wave for z/VM in February 2014. Enable China Sales, Development and Support team to increase System z footprint in Asia. Support local customers in China and Asia with Linux on System z and z/VM.

Management of Linux development and quality assurance team (25 people). Development and test for new Linux on System z distributions within a worldwide team of engineers. Support System z enterprise customers to save IT budget spendings by migrating workload to System z. Customer advocate for 3 key z Systems customer in India. System z education for local IBM team, customer and ISV to increase System z footprint in India by founding the India z Systems user group.

People Manager of an international quality assurance team with 18 direct reports in Germany. Delivered enterprise Linux quality for System z Linux distributions from RedHat and SuSE. Guaranteed complete Linux readiness for System z hardware at launch date for System z10, z196, z114, DS8000 and V7000. Problem resolution and consulting assignments at international System z customers. Speaker at several System z customer conferences with System z performance and service related topics.

Led 5 people Linux on System z service team as part of the IBM Linux Technology Center (LTC). Solved customer problems and complaints. Supported proof of concepts with an international IBM team enterprise customer (e.g. BTMU, Nomura, HomeDepot, CitiBank, Deutsche Börse, WellsFargo, SpardaBank). Onsite customer support, timely problem resolution for functional and performance related problems. Speaker at international System z conferences (e.g. SHARE, IBM technical conf. WAVV).

Contributed code to System z specific device drivers (qdio, qeth) and tools (s390-tools package) with focus on networking. Improved Linux for IBM server product line as part of the IBM Linux Technology Center (LTC). Speaker at international System z conferences.

Delivered system performance for enterprise IBM customers running Linux on System z and z/VM. Enabled System z platform specific performance features for Linux to help customers to run workload most cost effective. Part of an international System z performance group with z/VSE, z/VM, z/OS and Middleware experts. Support for proof of concepts and TCO studies. Speaker at international System z conferences.

Quality assurance for IBM System z Operating Systems and SAP. System z verification test as part of an international team for z/OS, z/VSE, z/VM and Linux on System z. Assured quality for these products for IBM System z hardware products (e.g. G5, G6, Multiprise 3000, z900). Part of founding group for Linux on System z. Led test for Linux on System z on the first 64 Bit System z. Optimised test process and gained savings by using test automation.