PPM Media announced today that BladeSystems Insight, the only national invitational summit focused on blade-based and other data center solutions, made its successful debut
April 10-12, 2007. Over 300 participants attended the event launch including a hosted audience of senior-level IT executives from across North America, more than 20 leading and emerging vendors, seven industry associations, five separate analyst organizations, and media. The event took place at the Westin resort in Savannah, Georgia.
The three-day agenda culminated with the premiere of the BladeSystems Insight "Insight Awards" where attending executives voted upon outstanding vendor products and presentations showcased at the event.
-- IBM was awarded Best Server Product. Other nominees included Dell, Egenera and Supermicro.
-- APC was awarded Best Data Center Innovation. Other nominees included Eaton, Emerson and Mazu Networks.
-- Cisco was awarded Best Networking Product. Other nominees included Blade Network Technologies, NetEffect and Teak Technologies.
-- Egenera was awarded Best Virtualization Product. Other nominees included Emulex, Citrix and Intel.
-- Chris Hipp, technologist and entrepreneur, was presented with a special Outstanding Contribution to Blade Computing Innovation Award.
Other event highlights included:
-- Opening night keynote from Jeffrey Birnbaum, founder of 60East Technologies and former Global Head of Enterprise Computing for Morgan Stanley; and a joint keynote address from IBM executive Mark Papermaster and Intel executive Lorie Wigle.
-- 50 case studies presented by participating vendors and over 500 onsite one-on-one meetings scheduled between executives and vendors as well as private analyst meetings.
-- Industry panels including a Vendor Executive Panel; Virtualization Panel; Ethernet Panel; Analyst Panel bringing together Nemertes Research, IMEX Research, Robert Frances Group, Yankee Group and Illuminata; and a Blade Community Panel bringing together the presidents of leading industry associations including Blade Systems Alliance; Blade.org; DMTF (Distributed Management Task Force); Ethernet Alliance; and Open Grid Forum.
BladeSystems Insight 2008 will take place April 27-29, 2008 at the JW Marriott Starr Pass Tuscon Resort & Spa in Tuscon, Arizona. A total of 500 industry participants is expected including an expanded audience of pre-qualified IT executives, up to 40 vendor sponsors, top analysts and community leaders. Featured in next year's program -- in addition to case
studies, one-on-ones, industry panels, and a meeting/demo area -- will be educational workshops in vertical areas such as virtualization, power and cooling, networking, storage, and other data center technology sectors.
Vendors interested in sponsorship opportunities at BladeSystems Insight 2008 should email Paul Samargedlis at paul.samargedlis@ppmmedia.com or call 603-668-7141.
IT executives need to qualify in order to attend; every attending executive is provided with a participation package that includes airfare and accommodations. Interested executives should visit https://www.etouches.com/Information_Request.
For general information on BladeSystems Insight including posted presentations from the recent 2007 event, visit http://www.bladesystemsinsight.com.
BladeSystems Insight is produced by PPM Media. For more information, visit http://www.ppmmedia.com.