Gary Combs Email & Phone Number

Hillsboro, Oregon

Created over 50 training courses covering both hardware and software products. They have proven successful in preparing field sales and partners to handle both pre-sales and after-sales customer engagements. The training programs utilized a variety of delivery modes (e.g., instructor led training, self-paced training, virtual, blended). Now fully versed in utilizing the most common course development tools: Captivate and Articulate for SCORM production, Camtasia for video creation and editing, Pixelmator for image editing, and Audacity for audio editing.I am co-author of the book, "Oracle Solaris 10 System Virtualization Essentials", and the follow on, "Oracle Solaris 11 System Virtualization Essentials (2nd Edition)".Created over 50 training courses covering both hardware and software products. They have proven successful in preparing field sales and partners to handle both pre-sales and after-sales customer engagements. The training programs utilized a variety of delivery modes (e.g., instructor led training, self-paced training, virtual, blended). Now fully versed in utilizing the most common course development tools: Captivate and Articulate for SCORM production, Camtasia for video creation and editing, Pixelmator for image editing, and Audacity for audio editing.I am co-author of the book, "Oracle Solaris 10 System Virtualization Essentials", and the follow on, "Oracle Solaris 11 System Virtualization Essentials (2nd Edition)".

Successfully executed a broad range of responsibilities. Supported the entire SPARC product line, specializing in the Engineered System the Oracle SuperCluster. Worked directly with field sales and Oracle customers to create product use cases, competitive analysis, and procedures for integrating new platforms into existing datacenters. Gave global support for business opportunities, as well as face-to-face customer presentations. Provided both high-level, and in-depth training to the global sales force, as well as strategic customers. Leveraged all Oracle technologies in software, database, operating systems, systems management, and server technology to deliver compelling and winning sales strategies around the integrated Oracle stack. Gather evidence of customer adoption trends to aid in future product development and support.Key Functions include:• Developed winning strategies against other high-end server competitors for direct sales force and partner use. Have won 70% of the deals when I was involved early to assist the local sales team.• Directly responsible for over $75 million dollars in revenue total.• Co-authored a cross business unit strategy for server, storage, network, and application virtualization messaging. Executing this strategy has lead to an 80% reduction in one-off issue resolutions.• Co-author of a book on Oracle Solaris 10 Virtualization Technologies.• Created all technical material in SPARC server product launches. This included detailed competitive technical analysis.• Specialized in high-end servers and SPARC Engineered Systems• Worked with product marketing on product value creation• In high demand to present future server product roadmaps and discuss adoption issues and challenges.• Consistently rated above 90% satisfaction by attendees to my training and product details session.

Key Functions include: - Direct interface to Customers and Field Sales to provide pre-sales support, address sales inhibitors and competitive issues, and communicate roadmaps/strategy. - Provide VOC Feedback into Product Definition/Strategy teams and Product Engineering - Development and maintenance of field training material with deep technical product details. - Develop content for product launch of SPARC server products - Creation of Technical Marketing deliverables including White Papers, Blueprints, and Deep Dive FAQs - Maintaining and enabling the Oracle/Sun SPARC Server Community worldwide via consistent and direct communications

Gathers requirements for product definition of systems software of next generation servers. Worked as a member of a 5-person team that focused on specific technologies. My role as a software specialist involved obtaining customers requirements and evaluating competition and technology trends. Continued to utilize SIGMA tools and gathering VOC data to set general platform management requirements across a range of low to high-end servers. Collaborate with other engineering, service, storage, Solaris, systems management, and networking business units to have a consistent vision of product requirements in a 3-year window.

As a Software Product Marketing Manager, oversaw the definition and delivery for platform management software on the mid-range and high-end UltraSPARC server line. Tasks include setting systems platform software requirements, guidance to engineering development, setting feature set priorities, and assist outbound marketing in product messaging. Work with service, support, education, and other marketing groups to ensure proper product coverage at launch. Took a server through the full product life cycle from conception to retirement. Leverage other team member’s expertise to enhance platform management requirements. Meet with Product Engineering Teams to resolve product and priority issues. Meet with Product Business Teams to address time-to-market issues, pricing and availability issues, and product readiness timelines. Facilitate cross business unit communication to strengthen product viability and integration with other Sun products. Work with competitive team to develop a SWOT analysis of the competition for use by both marketing and the sales force.• Created several Tiger teams to address short-term product issues. Achieved 60% reduction is problem resolution over standard product team processes.• Conducted several customer surveys to determine current product use to aid in engineering use-case studies. This provided marketing more credibility when setting product feature priorities.

Provided Pre/Post-Sales technical support for all major verticals. I am able to map product technologies and solutions to customer’s technical and business objectives. Supported accounts with an average of $4-8 million yearly target. As a Regional SE, duties included account planning, assisting in RFP's, tracking technical requirements in sales opportunities, and general mentoring of SEs across the region. As technical team leader for the Mid-Atlantic Financial District, I provided consulting and mentoring to a team of 5 engineers. This involved day-to-day activities, sales strategy planning, and general mentoring.