Former Sun Microsystems Inc. executive Mark Tolliver has been named CEO and president of Palamida Inc., which builds automated software that provides intellectual property (IP) management and compliance in software code.

Tolliver, 53, a former chief marketing and strategy officer at Sun, joins the San Francisco-based company as its first CEO after leaving Sun in April 2004 following a reorganization and management shake-up. His selection was announced Monday.

Palamida"s IP Amplifier Version 3.0 is used to automatically detect, manage, analyze and report on third-party commercial and open-source software components and licenses to ensure that their use is proper. By analyzing the code using Palamida"s large code database, software developers can know the legal status of the third-party code to ensure the legitimacy of their applications, according to the company.

Palamida, which was launched in 2003, competes with Waltham, Mass.-based Black Duck Software Inc. in the software IP assurance marketplace.

Tolliver said he joined the company because it has the potential to improve the software industry. "I do think this is a new area in the software industry that has plenty of room to grow over time," he said. "I think it will start to accelerate this engine of taking advantage of open-source intellectual property."

Palamida"s software uses three detection and analysis methods to automatically analyze code, looking at binaries and source code, namespace detection and also code ranking that ranks the search results. Tolliver said the technology "is going to encourage even more widespread use of third-party components in open-source software."

At Sun, Tolliver was responsible for corporate marketing, product and business strategy, mergers and acquisitions, industry marketing and independent software vendor programs. He was with the company for 10 years and had served as president and general manager of Sun"s iPlanet division.

Before joining Sun, Tolliver was vice president of marketing at MasPar Computer Corp. and spent 16 years at Hewlett-Packard Co.