Jeff Mann
Research Vice President

The introduction and socialization of consumer technologies is changing how users work within enterprise settings. To leverage this creative and innovative energy, enterprises must adapt to users’ preferences.

Key issues:

• What consumer practices and technologies will have the highest impact on IT?
• How can organizations support and manage user demands for wider possibilities, including consumer-based technologies?
• What consumer technologies will have the highest impact on IT  through 2010?

Annette Jump
Principal Research Analyst

The second half of 2006 will see the release of Windows Vista and Office 12.  This presentation will look more closely at both products and provide the guidance on making the right decisions with respect to both products, including when and how to make a move.  We will examine the features, business impacts and early customer experiences as well as reviewing the potential alternatives.

Key issues:

• What are the key features and roadmaps for Microsoft's new client-side platforms?
• How will these products impact current environments?
• How are organizations and market players responding?

Brian Prentice
Research Director

With the growing success of hosted application providers like salesforce.com, NetSuite, and RightNow organizations are increasingly wondering what, if any, role these vendors play in their technology portfolio. Many misconceptions exist about the hosted application phenomena fueled either by the ASP false start of the late nineties or a view of these product frozen from five years ago. This presentation will explore the trends that indicate hosted applications playing a central role in redefining vendor-customer relationships and how they’ll be an important part of future SOA strategies. The presentation will also look at user scenarios for existing hosted application customers.

Steve Blood
Research Vice President

All decisions around enterprise voice, mobility, network design, etc, must support a consistent long-term vision. A 3-year ROI is hard if not impossible to build for most infrastructure decisions. Companies need to focus on a long term, 10-year vision to envisage an ideal communications environment that unifies wired and wireless network plans and use network investments to find business value in Convergence.

Key issues:

• How is the design for IP Telephony linked to the data network and your enterprise mobility strategy?
• Should companies build their own telephony solution or procure it from a service provider?

Phil Dawson
Research Vice President

Windows is a mature server operating system, expanding into more and more SME as well as enterprise roles. However, Linux and the open-source model have emerged as its primary competition. The success of Linux or Windows will depend on the ability to build flexible and robust software infrastructures using them, and the ability to automate and virtualize infrastructures built around them. In addition, a panoply of other 'legacy' operating systems are in active use today; what role do they play in the SME data center of today and tomorrow?

Key Issues:
• What are the trends for all operating systems? What are the server road maps for Windows and Linux? How fast will each mature to meet market needs and trends?
• How should medium enterprises compare and contrast infrastructures based on Linux, Windows or other operating systems?
• What server tools and best practices should users employ for successful Windows and/or Linux deployments?

Simon Mingay
Research Vice President

As recovery time and recovery point objectives have shrunk and high levels of availability are being demanded by the business, the disciplines of availability and business continuity management have merged. We look at the essential best practices to improve availability and improve both business resilience and continuity.

Key issues:

• What are the best management practices to ensure appropriate availability and continuity of services?

Neil Rickard
Research Vice President

The network is playing an increasingly important role in IT security. In this presentation we will look beyond firewalls, VPNs and authentication to see the new ways in which networking technologies can help secure the organization. 

Key issues:

• What role with the enterprise network play in IT security?
• How can the network help control the spread of malware?
• How what are the benefits of looking deeper than the protocol layer?

Nikos Drakos
Research Director

Open source software is poised to have a profound impact across numerous software markets and industries. As more options become accessible to the mainstream, businesses that fail to seize opportunities afforded by open source will increasingly find themselves at a competitive disadvantage. In this presentation, we address both business and technical drivers and inhibitors to successfully leveraging open source software in midsize businesses.

Key issues:

• What is the open-source software model and what is its significance for midsize businesses?
• What are the key open-source products and technologies with high impact today?
• What strategies and tactics will lead to optimal use of open-source software?

Monica Basso
Research Vice President

Proving the business value of mobility is still a challenge, and as projects become more business-critical executives must also adopt more formal risk management practices. This presentation provides methods to assess tangible and intangible value using TCO, ROI and VOI; advice on mobile metrics implementation; and a framework for risk and compliance management.

Key issues:

• How can corporations assess tangible and intangible value and use techniques such as TCO, ROI and VOI to justify mobile projects?
• How should mobile metrics programs be designed and implemented?
• What legal and commercial risks will mobile systems pose and how should corporations address these as part of compliance procedures?

Jeff Mann
Research Vice President

Just as collaboration within the enterprise has reached wide-spread adoption, forward-looking organizations are looking to extend collaboration to the next frontier: beyond the firewall to external partners, vendors and suppliers.

Key issues:

• How is collaboration with external partners, vendors and suppliers different from internal collaboration?
• What are the best practices organizations should use to most effectively collaborate with external users?
• Which technologies will have the highest impact on external collaboration through 2010?