Brocade’s Scott Kipp new Ethernet Alliance president

The Ethernet Alliance (EA) has announced that Scott G. Kipp, senior technologist at Brocade Communications Systems (NASDAQ: BRCD), is its new president. He succeeds Jim Theodoras of ADVA Optical Networking. Kipp takes over immediately and will continue through February 2012.

“I am truly honored that the Ethernet Alliance’s board of directors has asked me to take on the responsibility and challenges of leading this vibrant organization, and to carry on its outstanding work in the advancement of leading-edge Ethernet technologies,” said Kipp. “Jim Theodoras’s strategic vision and leadership have allowed the Ethernet Alliance to excel in its role as the industry’s premier resource for Ethernet advocacy, education, and innovation. We thank him for his dedicated service and congratulate him on his accomplishments as president.”

The Alliance expects Kipp to launch several new initiatives that will expand upon those Theodoras launched. These include the organization’s “University of Ethernet” (UE) webinar series. The free UE presentations will cover a range of topics, from foundational Ethernet technologies to next-generation applications, such as parallel optics and terabit Ethernet.

“Ethernet is vital to today’s global data networks and data traffic is growing between 30 to 40 percent annually and pushing Internet infrastructure to the limit,” said Kipp. “We’ve entered the Web 3.0 era, where high-definition video is delivered to millions of televisions and data is delivered to billions of smartphones. The industry is just beginning to adopt 100 Gigabit Ethernet and IEEE is developing lower-cost solutions as we speak. Only through careful, forward-thinking stewardship can the industry cost-effectively increase the number and speed of Ethernet links to successfully address and overcome this bandwidth challenge.”