3Tera CEO Miloushev Passes Away

Utility computing software maker 3Tera said Wednesday that CEO Vlad Miloushev died suddenly on Aug. 30 from a brain aneurysm. He was 45. "Vlad was a brilliant, extraordinary visionary who will be missed by everyone that knew him," said 3Tera Chairman Barry Lynn, who will now serve as CEO. "He built a strong company by surrounding himself with exceptional people. 3Tera is strong and fully capable of not only achieving its goals, but exceeding them." In adapting to Miloushev's sudden passing, 3Tera said that CTO Peter Nickolov had named President and Chief Operating Officer, while Eric Tessler has been appointed VP of Engineering.

Miloushev was a serial entrepreneur who founded four companies, as well as a software architect with 23 patents in object-oriented software, operating systems, networks and storage. Miloushev's previous companies included System Research, Object Dynamics and Z-force. He was a Fulbright scholar with an MS degree from Moscow University, where he majored in Quantum Physics.

A memorial page at VladMiloushev.com provides additional remembrances, including a profile based on his last media interview on Aug. 9. I spoke with Vlad on Aug. 8 for an article about 3tera's virtual private data centers. While colleague Bert Armijo spoke at length about the product, Miloushev talked about his vision for utility computing.

"Everybody's talking about computing in the cloud, but what they're really talking about is computing in my cloud," he said. "If a 21st-century utility computer model is going to happen and it has to look like the Web, not my web and your web, but an open environment."