One of the great things about my job is that I occasionally get to meet with heads of state or other government officials. As a leading R&D investing company in an industry that creates a lot of jobs around the world, Sun has a lot to offer. Consider our open source strategy. You can access our software assets anywhere in the world and create a business using that technology or supporting local companies and organizations that use it as well.

My experience so far has been that this message has been best received by government leaders outside the U.S. For example, I was fortunate to meet the Prime Minister of Macedonia a few months ago named Nikola Gruevski. He’s a young leader selling the geographic and infrastructure advantages of his country for companies looking to emerging economies in Eastern Europe and Asia.

Today was the first time I was asked to meet with the head of a U.S. state, Massachusetts, Deval Patrick. Typically I’ve found that head of U.S. States can be rather presumptive about a company’s interest in their state. Especially a state like Massachusetts, who has their own incredible intellectual and academic assets to offer to a company like Sun.

So, it was refreshing that the governor requested the meeting with our CEO, Jonathan Schwartz. Sun employs a number in the state. We are a major supplier of technology to the universities in the state. A number of the state’s alumni work in high positions throughout Sun regardless of whether they live in the state or not. At the heart of economics lies innovation - and innovation is Sun's specialty....and apparently Massachusetts as well.