It was July 2005, all seemed well with the world and “HP World” was
just weeks away. Thousands of HP-UX users were preparing for a week of
sessions with fellow Interex users. HP partners had ordered up glossies
and banners while used HP 9000 resellers had made arrangements for
broker get-togethers. Then, Interex, the independent organization
responsible for organizing the user conference, went under and HP World
was no more.
“HP Technology Forum 2006? is the follow-up to last year’s
bittersweet replacement conference, and I’m waiting to see whether our
clients and partners return from it with the exuberance that they once
did from HP World.
You might wonder why I would doubt HP Technology Forum 2006…
The main issue here is that the conference is organized by HP themselves. As Rita Workman said in a 2005 Computerworld article
regarding HP World: “It was basically geared to the users — not
controlled by the vendor.” I hope that HP takes those words to heart and
keeps the presentations and format user-focused.
Due to various obligations, I will not be able to attend next week’s
hoopla, but I will be closely monitoring the response. If I hear good
things, we will likely exhibit next year and introduce our used HP Integrity and HP Proliant servers and upgrades to the HP Technology Forum attendees.
Blogging HP Technology Forum 2006
Encompass, currently the largest HP-UX and HP Enterprise Hardware User
Group, will cover events and sessions at HPTF on their blog from Houston
all week. If you can’t make it in person, get a taste of the HP server
conference at:
http://main.blogs.encompassus.org/.