SOA, OSA, and the Philly Emerging Technology Conference

To those who follow my postings, I apologize for the short-term absence. Between completing 2007 strategic planning, meeting with clients, attending the Eastern Technology Council's CIO Rountable on Web 2.0, Web Services / SOA on Wall Street conference, Linux World in NYC, and developing a press-release around the open solutions alliance (OSA), it’s been a busy time. New York is such a great city to visit, especially when I have an opportunity to chat with so many open source leaders. The only negatives (besides the snow storm that stranded so many would-be attendees) were the accommodations at the Roosevelt Hotel. The rooms are very tiny, with zero sound-deadening, and the closets are no more than 10 inches deep … forget about trying to hang any shirts or jackets in there, unless you cram them in sideways. The in-house restaurant service is very slow, and, like everything else in NYC, prices are very expensive. A single bottle of spring water at the Roosevelt costs $16. But, putting all that aside, it was wonderful to see so much buzz around open source, both from a vendor perspective as well as from major Wall Street firms. And, that buzz is just starting to heat up for 2007.

Some great events coming in March include the Open Source Think Tank, the OTD conference, and the Emerging Technologies for the Enterprise event.

The Think Tank is sponsored by the Olliance Group and will be bringing many leading open source companies together to discuss the future of commercial open source. Myself and Ali Shadman from Unisys are planning to attend.

The ODT conference is a two-day event addressing the Department of Defense’s Open Technology Development (OTD) to leverage open source software, standards, and architecture into the DoD. One of the foremost leaders in this space, John Scott, will be attending this event, not to mention other top executives from the government.

The Emerging Technologies for the Enterprise event had a huge turnout in 2006 and looks to be even bigger this year. It is the largest event in the Philadelphia region around open source technologies for the enterprise. The conference is sponsored by Chariot Solutions, which, by the way, is a great open source consulting firm with some very impressive talent. A senior Unisys executive and CIO, John Carrow, will be speaking at the event as well as the founder of Spring Framework, Rod Johnson. Also, I will be part of a panel session discussing the various legal aspects of open source, including how to select the best tools, applications, and licensing models to best meet various business needs.

I know these events (and many others this year) will help further the open source movement and draw more businesses closer to realizing the huge potential from leveraging open source. I can only hope the accommodations for these events will not resemble the Roosevelt.