The Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) has appointed Masanobu Hirano to the newly-created position as OSDL Director of Asia.

A former Red Hat executive, Hirano brings more than 25 years of enterprise computing experience in the United States and Asia to lead OSDL programs and new initiatives throughout Asia.

"OSDL is committed to advancing Linux in Asia and we're very pleased to appoint Masanobu Hirano to lead our initiatives there," said Stuart Cohen, CEO of OSDL. "Hirano's accomplishments in Asia and his leadership experience at enterprise software companies in Japan are important to the success of OSDL and our mission of accelerating the adoption of Linux around the world."

"OSDL has accelerated the acceptance of Linux by launching key initiatives in telecommunications, data center computing and enterprise desktops through Lab working groups that bring together users, developers and vendors," said Masanobu Hirano. "I look forward to working with industrial leaders to expand the Asian market."

Before joining OSDL, Hirano served as president of Red Hat Japan and General Manager of Red Hat North Asia. Prior to that, he was vice president and a board member at ASCII Corporation in Japan, a software development firm. He was also president of Nippon VenturCom, a real-time and embedded Unix operating system start-up company, and editor of Nikkei Computer. He started his career as an engineer with IBM in Japan and the United States. Hirano holds a Bachelor's Degree in Physics from Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan.

OSDL - home to Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux - is dedicated to accelerating the growth and adoption of Linux. Founded in 2000 by CA, Hitachi, HP, IBM, Intel and NEC, OSDL is a non-profit organization at the center of Linux supported by a global consortium of Linux customers and IT industry leaders. OSDL sponsors industry-wide initiatives around Linux in telecommunications, in the enterprise data center and on corporate desktops. The Lab also provides Linux expertise and computing and test facilities in the United States and Japan available to developers around the world.

OSDL is a trademark of Open Source Development Labs, Inc. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds. Third party marks and brands are the property of their respective holders.