Open Source Business Conference Spotlights Industry Business Leaders at March Summit in San Francisco.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

Open Source Business Conference 2004

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 2, 2004

The Boston Consulting Group, HP, IBM, Intel, Novell, VERITAS Software 

and Others Unveil Open Source Strategies for 2004 and Beyond

Open Source Business Conference 2004, the premier event for open source software and business, today announced the final line up of lead sponsors and keynotes for the March 16 and 17 event at the Westin St. Francis hotel in San Francisco.

With panel and speaking tracks designed for IT vendors and enterprise customers as well as legal, venture and investment professionals, the event features the open source brain trusts driving market strategies at the world's largest information technology firms.

The Boston Consulting Group, HP, IBM, Intel, Novell and VERITAS Software have agreed to be lead sponsors for Open Source Business Conference 2004. Other sponsors include Computer Associates, Finnegan Henderson, Gluecode Software, Groundwork Open Source Solutions, Linux Networx, Metrowerks, Microsoft, OSAIA, Sendmail, SGI, Summit Law Group, Wind River Systems and Zope.

David Ritter, vice president, Strategic Technology, for The Boston Consulting Group, speaks March 17 on lessons that business can learn from open source about connected communities.

"Understanding the motivations and patterns of interaction in the open source community yields valuable insight into how organizations can become more effective," Ritter said. "For the CIO, or any business leader, making connections should be an important part of your strategic thinking."

Martin Fink, vice president, Linux for HP, speaks March 16 on the business and economics of open source.

"Corporate managers need to understand how to assess the benefits, costs, and risks of open source versus proprietary software," Fink said. "There are also a number of other issues in open source, including intellectual property, licensing, human resources and collaborating with the open source community of developers. Businesses need to know how to navigate a new set of processes to effectively manage open source projects along with proprietary software within their organizations."

Scott Handy, vice president, Worldwide Linux Strategy and Market Development at IBM, speaks March 16 about how IBM plans to broaden its embrace of open source solutions.

"Just as open source and open standards were critical to the emergence of the Internet, so they will continue playing an increasingly important role in the evolution of the next generation of e-business on demand," Handy said. "Open source can help accelerate the adoption of open standards and help drive new business opportunities like web services and grid."

William A. Swope, corporate vice president and co-general manager, Software and Solutions Group at Intel, speaks March 17 about how the semiconductor giant is developing new markets in open source.

"Three years ago, Intel challenged the open source industry to focus on making open source alternatives more attractive for the enterprise computing space by accelerating the porting and deployment of integrated Linux solutions," Swope said. "Today, achieving the next level of productivity in enterprise computing requires that developers provide robust support for mobility while at the same time managing data across multiple devices and architectures."

Chris Stone, vice chairman, Office of the CEO, Novell, speaks March 16 on how companies can offer customers choice, selling both open and closed source solutions.

"Dot-commers declared that the Internet would topple brick-and-mortar companies, and fundamentally change basic economics," Stone said. "They were wrong. Today, as the industry trends toward open source -- a trend which Novell is driving perhaps more than any other vendor -- pundits have similarly declared the end of traditional software models. These, too, will be proved wrong, as the industry matures to see that it is not an 'Either/Or' between open and closed source, but rather an 'And.'"

Mark Bregman, executive vice president, Product Operations, at VERITAS Software, speaks March 17 on how open source fits into a global enterprise computing environment.

"Open source is playing an increasingly important role in enterprise computing," Bregman said. "The flexibility and price advantages inherent in open source-based solutions are proving a strong enticement to public and private sector businesses, including Global 2000 companies. In particular, open source will play a growing role for companies looking to increase service level availability, accelerate application performance and automate common tasks at the lowest cost possible while taking a pragmatic approach toward utility computing."

Keynote presenters confirmed also include:

-- Clayton M. Christensen -- Author, The Innovator's Dilemma

-- Raymond Lane -- General Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield &

Byers

-- Larry Lessig -- Author, The Future of Ideas; Professor,

Stanford Law School 

-- Tim O'Reilly -- Founder and President, O'Reilly & Associates

-- Eben Moglen -- General Counsel, Free Software Foundation

Media Sponsors

Business 2.0, Fortune, InformationWeek, Optimize, O'Reilly, OSDN, Red Herring, SDForum and ZDNet.

About Open Source Business Conference

The Open Source Business Conference (OSBC), the premier event for open source and business, is the leading independent forum for addressing the business, legal and financial issues facing technology vendors and organizations deploying open source software. OSBC 2004 will be held March 16-17, in San Francisco at the Westin St. Francis. View details and register at www.osbc2004.com.

Open Source Business Conference is a trademark of Genus Group LLC. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds. Third party marks and brands are the property of their respective holders.