SCO Forum96, the Santa Cruz Operation's tenth annual international symposium for developers, resellers and IS managers takes place Aug. 18-23 at the University of California at Santa Cruz. The event is expected to attract more than 2,000 open systems professionals.
SCO Forum96 will feature a range of in-depth courses on some of the key business and engineering topics affecting the global computer industry. The event's conference program will be segmented into three major 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 systems 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. For more information, go to www.sco.com or call (800) SCO-FORUM.
Alok Mohan, SCO president and CEO, recently spoke to UniNews about SCO Forum96.
Q: Please describe SCO Forum for us.
SCO Forum is a unique event that has always been a favorite of SCO customers, channel partners and employees. It's the one time each year when the global SCO community can get together in one place and look at and discuss the new technologies, products and market opportunities available for the next year and beyond. You'll find MIS managers, systems administrators, hardware and software developers, resellers, distributors, dealers, industry analysts, journalists and representatives from the world's leading computer hardware and software vendors all gathered together.
Q: How does SCO Forum96 reflect the larger picture at SCO?
SCO Forum provides everyone with a comprehensive overview of our corporate strategy, technology roadmap and products. Again, this year's Forum will be very special because SCO is rapidly changing into a different kind of company: we're addressing many more markets and introducing a much broader range of products than ever before. And we're focusing on new markets for SCO, such as the enterprise, cross-platform and embedded technology markets.
But the Forum is not just about SCO. It's a unique educational event that covers a broad range of industry topics. It's like going back to the university for a week. SCO Forum features course tracks that focus on the key business, engineering and system administration topics affecting all of us in the international information systems industry.
Q: How is the continuing close relationship between SCO and UniForum reflected in benefits to attendees of SCO Forum that accrue from both SCO and UniForum?
SCO has always had very close ties with UniForum. Doug Michels, a cofounder of the company and our executive vice president and CTO, was one of the founding members of UniForum and served as UniForum's president from 1989 to 1990. Mike Tilson, our CIO, is the current president of UniForum. So it's no surprise that attendees of SCO Forum96 will benefit from the SCO-UniForum relationship. UniForum and SCO have a long shared history. This year, all registrants of SCO Forum qualify as trial members of the association and so will receive a year's worth of issues of UniForum's IT Solutions magazine and UniNews online, as well as Web access to the UniForum Open Systems Products Directory--all at no charge.
Q: What do you see as the most outstanding attractions at this year's event?
Our keynote speakers are always a major attraction. Among this year's speakers are Sun Microsystems' Scott McNealy and Unisys' Dave McCann. Another really outstanding attraction this year is the Gemini Fast Track, a special two-day program for developers. Gemini is the code name we have given to the forthcoming SCO product that will unify the "best of breed" technologies of our SCO OpenServer and SCO UnixWare systems into a single environment. A lot of people are excited about Gemini because it's the first major step toward the next-generation, 64-bit UNIX System technology base that we're developing with HP.
Another key attraction is our new format for exhibitions. In the spirit of the university experience, we've replaced the big-booth, expo-type format with a more straightforward, roundtable format that invites attendees to sit down and participate in lunchtime "chalk talks" with the engineers who actually build the products. We think this new format will enrich the exhibition experience; in the past, many leading vendors have used the SCO Forum spotlight to announce new products. So at these chalk talks, you can look forward to getting an inside look at emerging technologies.
Q: Is there anything else you would like to say about SCO Forum96?
Well, I could go on and on talking about the benefits and excitement of attending SCO Forum. But to really understand SCO Forum, you need to be there. It's a memorable and productive way to spend one of the last weeks of summer. It's also a great way to kick off the next business year. I look forward to seeing all of your readers there!