No. 34 Ian Pratt, project leader, Xen
Last year's position: Not placed
Why? Making virtualisation a commodity
Virtualisation - allowing multiple operating systems to run on a single system - used to cost companies an arm and a leg. But no more - thanks to Ian Pratt and the Xen project.
Founded by Pratt in 2001, the open source Xen has caused grief for the likes of EMC's VMware and IBM by offering capable virtualisation software for free.
As one Agenda Setters panellist said: "Virtualisation has become a commodity and that is mainly down to Xen."
Pratt not only is chief architect of the Xen technology but also undertook the hard work of winning over industry heavyweights to the open source way - a necessary step on the path to making Xen ubiquitous.
When not working on Xen, Pratt is a Cambridge University lecturer who specialises in computer architecture, networking and operating systems.
Take a walk down memory lane - and find out who made the Agenda Setters poll over the years:
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