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Tenth Anniversary for SCO Forum



SCO Forum has become a mainstay industry event. This year's program, expected to draw many IS professionals, reaches a milestone of longevity.

According to the Santa Cruz Operation, more than 2,000 open systems professionals from dozens of countries around the world are expected to attend SCO Forum96, the tenth annual international symposium for developers, resellers and IS managers taking place Aug. 18-23 at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

"We are pleased that the international information systems industry has acknowledged SCO Forum96 as the must-attend event of the year," says Alok Mohan, SCO's president and CEO. "This is a great way to mark SCO Forum's tenth birthday."

SCO Forum96 will feature a range of in-depth courses on some of the key business and engineering topics affecting the global computer industry. SCO Forum96 will also include a special session called the "Gemini" Fast Track, a two-day course for developers interested in an in-depth, code-level preview of SCO's upcoming Gemini operating system product, which combines elements of SCO UnixWare and OpenServer.

This year, the event's conference program will be segmented into three major conference tracks: business, systems administration and engineering. The business track will cover topics such as selling Internet security solutions and market analyses of Latin America and the Pacific Rim. The system administration track will include topics on maintaining Web sites and Internet security. The engineering track will address topics such as database connectivity and migrating host applications to client/server environments.

In addition, international business and technology leaders will deliver keynote speeches in the university's Quarry amphitheater. In keeping with the tradition of past Forum conferences, attendees will be invited to hear a selection of presenters from a variety of backgrounds and experience. The list of speakers was not available as of this writing, but by now it can be accessed at SCO's Web site, www.sco.com.

Important Benefits

UniForum and SCO have shared roots that go far back. SCO was one of UniForum's founding sponsors, and we are now in our fifteenth year. SCO Forum has always been a UniForum meeting place; in fact, at SCO Forum95, a hallway gathering brought together four past UniForum presidents and enough board and staff members to constitute a quorum.

UniForum's successful Trial Member program has also been helped by SCO and SCO Forum. Membership offers have been bundled with SCO software shipments, and our publications are part of the Forum's attendee materials. This year the cooperation reaches a new level. All registrants of SCO Forum qualify as trial members of this association and so will receive a year's worth of issues of UniForum's IT Solutions and the UniNews online newsletter, as well as Web access to the UniForum Open Systems Products Directory.

"We're grateful to SCO and, in particular, John Lehmann, its director of marketing communications, for this extraordinary measure of cooperation," says Dick Shippee, director of publications for UniForum. "SCO Forum attendees are precisely the audience we want to reach with our publications and educational services. In turn, we believe Forum attendees will welcome and value their new relationship with UniForum."

A Good Time for All

On the recreational side, SCO Forum96 will feature a variety of events designed to take advantage of the Santa Cruz area's beautiful summer climate. Activities will include tours of the finest wineries in the nearby mountains, golf tournaments, a soccer tournament, foot races, barbecues, a train ride through the forested mountains on a 100-year-old, steam-powered locomotive and beach volleyball.

The cost of the full, six-day SCO Forum96 conference is $1195 or $717 with the SCO OK discount. The two-day Gemini Fast Track course (Aug. 22-23) is included with conference registration or is available separately for $295. An SCO Forum96 exhibits-only pass costs $30. For more information, go to http://www.sco.com or call (800) SCO-FORUM.