Appcelerator hired two new executives to head its R&D operations, both of whom have worked over a decade each for software maker Adobe.

Carl Orthlieb is taking over as the new VP of engineering, bringing with him over 25 years of experience in the software industry. Of that time, 17 years were spent working for Adobe, where he served as Senior Director of Server Engineering and Director of Acrobat Engineering prior to his departure. Engineering is the most prominent keyword in Orthlieb’s resume, and extends to the list of executive management roles he fulfilled at CA Technologies and Ariba.

The second latest Appcelerator hire is Jo Ann Buckner, who worked at Adobe for 13 years and contributed to the Creative Suite unit, among other things. Most recently she was appointed as the software maker’s Director of Product Management, Touch Tooling and Creative Cloud.

The third addition to the company’s team is Doug Norton-Bilsby, who will now be spearheading Appcelerator’s EMEA efforts from the newly opened London headquarters, which has yet to have been occupied by a full staff.

“We are thrilled to add these seasoned influencers and executives to Appcelerator’s ranks,” said Jeff Haynie, Appcelerator co-founder and CEO.

“Appcelerator is experiencing 500% annual growth as enterprises look to expand and scale their mobile initiatives. These new team members have vast technology and leadership experience to ensure Appcelerator customers stay ahead of the development curve, enabling businesses to unleash rich mobile apps that transform customer relationships and empower a mobile workforce.”

Appcelerator’s intentions for global expansion were revealed back in November, when it raised $15 million in a Series C funding round. Mayfield Fund, Translink Capital, and Red Hat jumped on the bandwagon, taking their respective seats alongside existing investors eBay. Sierra Ventures, and Storm Ventures.

Europe is going to be a key market for growth for Appcelerator, as it expands its global reach.  While the company already had a presence there, reiterating its goals in the tangible sense means opening up an office in London.  This will be a good jump-off point for Appcelerator as it works its way through Europe, crafting strategies for expansion into Germany and France among other countries.

Haynie recognizes the differences between the American market and Europe’s, noting the necessity for a finely tuned partnership strategy as Appcelerator deepens its ties in Europe’s vast market.

“We’re going after a region-specific strategy,” Haynie says.  “Certainly Europe’s much more partner driven to get into service customers in France.  I think we’ll be heavily partner-focused for growth in Europe.  From that standpoint we’ll probably have an initial mix of people over there for sales and support around sales.  And we’ll have some services people soon to support partner efforts.  We’ll expand training, as we’ve been running training programs in Europe for a year now.”

Extending their ecosystem has been a key strategy for Appcelerator in the states as well, launching several programs geared for developers and customers, as well as an app store. The company’s seen significant success in 2011 as both HTML5 and native app platforms attract developers to the mobile realm.  Appcelerator’s ability to offer a full suite of developer tools across the gamut of mobile platforms has helped to grow its developer community and customer base, as well as its employees, which are now 150 strong (up from about 30 at the start of 2011).