Local Tech Leader Ted Leonsis interview on CNBC

Following the 4th largest single day fall in points on the Dow Jones Industrial average, Ted Leonsis appeared on CNBC’s morning edition of Squawkbox. Leonsis believes that the growth of online media will outpace more traditional methods as we see “consumers become merchants.” 

According to a CNBC interview, Ted Leonsis, Washington Caps owner and Vice Chairman Emeritus of AOL, believes that we have yet to bottom out of the financial crisis. Leonsis also said:

1. “Washington is really becoming the new capital for the economy”
2. “Commercial Real Estate will start to suffer”
3. “…not seeing the kind of recession the rest of the country is seeing”
4. Google has 5,000,000 advertisers and consumers are the long tail

Area residents should take heart, as Washington D.C. has managed to weather the crisis better than many other areas in the country.  According to Leonsis, this trend will continue given the furor of activity surrounding the incoming administration.  The future of new media will focus on  working smarter by placing media directly at the point-of-sale.  Click here to read more on Ted’s take.   

Do You Know Anthony Robbins of Sun Microsystems?

ExecutiveBiz recently had the opportunity to sit down with Anthony Robbins, Vice President of Sales at Sun Microsystems.  Robbins joined Sun following a 20 year career span in the government sector.  Despite the ruling economic climate, Robbins believes that the government will focus on using the most efficient products and services; something which Sun prides itself on providing.  In terms of weathering the financial storm, Robbins believes that the government will seize this opportunity to use corporate best practices as a guide and gain the best ROI by improving efficiencies.  One of the ways to do that might be in the adoption of open source.  Click here to read more. 

Financial Guru Headlines Event

Don’t miss the chance to meet Knight Kiplinger, one of the nation’s foremost authorities on financial forecasting, planning and wealth retention. The event will be hosted by the Potomac Officers Club on December 11th at the Ritz Carlton in Tysons from 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM. Members click here to read more about Knight Kiplinger and here to reserve your seat.

Cyber Security Breakfast with Melissa Hathaway

ExecutiveBiz is proud to host a rare public appearance by Ms. Melissa Hathaway, Senior Advisor to the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and Cyber Coordination Executive. The event will be held on Tuesday, January 13th, 2009 from 8:00 a.m.- 10:00 a.m. More details can be found here .  Click here to register.

Bill Vass of Sun Microsystems fuses the best of two worlds: his decades of experience in both the private and public sectors. Since becoming president and chief operation officer of Sun Microsystems Federal a year and a half ago, Vass has put his rich pool of experience to use. Sun is one of the biggest contributors to the open source community — and Vass aims to keep it that way. In the following Q&A Vass discusses some surprising facts about Sun Microsystems. He also fills you in one of his favorite toys — a 1976 industrial bulldozer — and how he put it to use (don’t try this at home, folks).

How big is the Sun Microsystems’ federal business, if you were to break that out?

Bill Vass: We don’t usually break that out. We have about 800 employees and are one of the fastest growing business units within Sun Microsystems. In addition, more and more of our customers are focused on open source and recognize the security and cost benefits — both administrative and power — of open source technologies.

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