Connect promos Tech Forum nonstop to HP-UX users
May 8, 2009
HP user group Connect is pushing this year's HP Technology Forum & Expo as "the HP-UX Gathering of the Year. But the June 15-18 Tech Forum counts fewer than 30 HP-UX breakout sessions on its current lineup. The 55-exhibitor expo also includes a 27-booth NonStop area, while HP's got more than 25 percent of total booth footage. HP, of course, will work its booth to illuminate the advances of NonStop, Windows and Linux along with HP-UX and so much more.
A check today showed 21 of the 100 exhibit spaces are still unbooked. This is a situation that generates deep discounts for vendors who have waited.
If all that sounds like a declining presence of HP-UX resources, Connect assured prospects this week that HP's Unix will never be covered better than at the HPTF&E. "Some highlights" included
- A Full-day Pre-Conference Seminar June 15: "HP-UX Power Tips and Techniques for System Administrator" (Connect hosts a sneak peek at the seminar this month in a Tuesday, May 19 Webcast)
- An HP-UX track kickoff session with HP's Brian Cox and M.J. Robinson June 16
- 29 breakout sessions dedicated to HP-UX technology
- HP-UX Showcase Demonstrations in the HP booth with access to HP experts
- HP-UX Special Interest Group Meeting
What else can a user migrating to Unix do with four days in the desert in Vegas? Track down attendees with Unix experience, or more likely, Windows expertise. Connect has always said that it books Forum sessions on the measure of how many attended a track last year. This is one of the reasons the HP 3000 has vanished from this year's talks.
Most conferences in 2009 will be smaller. The support of exhibitors -- crucial to a show's success -- is dialed back everywhere, it seems. In the publishing world, for example, major book companies have announced the conference effort is over, or at least pared down.
One of the largest publishing conferences of the year is the Frankfurt Book Fair. CEOs said this October meeting has slipped off schedules. Sterling CEO Marcus Leaver said yesterday, “I’m going to send a very reduced team to Frankfurt. The trade show is over.” The company has taken about $1 million out of its trade show, exhibition and sales conference budget.” Sourcebooks CEO Dominique Raccah eliminated in-person sales conferences entirely as part of a larger revamping to “create the next iteration of business as usual.”
Large or small in the publishing world, companies are reducing travel. Simon & Schuster is "cutting back dramatically.” Now things are much harder in the book world than in IT, but the go for a show is dwindling all over the 2009 calendar.