27/08-04   -   Pressmeddelande

IDCs European IT Forum to Explore Impact of Linux on Enterprise Computing

With over a billion dollars being spent by CIOs per quarter on Linux hardware alone, it is of vital importance to understand the role and influence of Linux across the whole IT ecosystem. IDC´s European IT Forum, which takes place on September 27 and 28, 2004, at the Meridien Montparnasse in Paris, features a session entitled "Respect and Influence: Understanding the Role of Linux Across the IT Landscape."

"Linux is at the heart of a potential move away from the ´horizontally integrated´ business model we´ve been living with for many years in the IT industry," said Martin Hingley, vice president of hardware research for IDC EMEA, and a joint chair of the above session. "Along with open source software, Linux could help to create a ´diagonally integrated´ model where users are more powerful, components better understood and in which standards develop — not just for products themselves, but also for the way in which those products interact."

Linux is truly accepted within the datacenter environment, and the next frontier will be the desktop. "While it is impossible for Linux products to offer the breadth of functionality of Microsoft-based devices, there are many opportunities for users who can split desktop users into functional groups," said Hingley. As we enter into this stage of Linux development, it is a good time to consider the success that system vendors have had to date and how this can be applied to this new direction. This session will look into this as well as give size, growth, and forecasts for Linux, cover which industry sectors are purchasing and for which applications and workloads, look at the positioning of Linux versus other platform types, investigate how the support environment for Linux differs from Unix and Windows, and explore how vendors are addressing open source developments.

Further key themes at this year´s forum include:
· Improving efficiencies while driving innovation
· Utility computing for a dynamic enterprise
Further information including a full agenda and a full list of speakers can be found at http://www.idc.com/emea/itforum04


The European IT Forum will also feature IDC´s Research Pavilion, where attendees can network with IDC analysts, and the Guru Labs, interactive workshops where a limited number of participants can brainstorm on critical issues with keynote speakers.

Editor´s Note: Press registration for this event is complimentary; for press passes, please contact Mathew Heath on +44 20 8987 7107/mheath@idc.com. IDC speaker interview requests are also being processed in advance of IDC´s European IT Forum by Mathew Heath. Advance scheduling is recommended because space and availability of experts are limited.

For more information:
Mathew Heath
+44 20 8987 7107
mheath@idc.com