The Dawn of a New Era
Synergy 2008 was the first step in a three-year transition to transform Citrix’s hugely popular global iForum user conference into a broader and far more significant industry event. In addition to all of their traditional iForum content, Synergy 2008 had included six keynotes from non-Citrix executives, 40 sessions lead by industry analysts and more than 30 technical tracks lead by other industry vendors. While this was just the first step in this transformation, Citrix was already awarded early success in attracting new audiences to the event with an amazing 63% of all attendees never having been to a Citrix iForum event before. With more than 200 Executive level participants and attendance from 44 countries around the world, Citrix is already planning for an even larger event next May when Synergy 2009 comes to the all new MGM Grand Conference Center in Las Vegas.
For those who were unable to attend this year’s event, the following are some of the highlights followed by links to the keynote videos and session content.
Geek Speak Live!
Of all the new elements introduced at Synergy this year, Geek Speak Live! was clearly the runaway hit with attendees. This “un-conference” where attendees set the agenda and openly debated hot industry topics was a standing-room-only madhouse. Stay tuned this month when Geek Speak goes 24x7 with the official unveiling of the new Citrix Communities Web site with all the latest in blogging, video tips, developer networks and industry best practices.
Spreading the Energy of Synergy
This year also saw the debut of Citrix’s new Synergy Underground site which captured live video feeds, behind-the-scenes tours, ad hoc video interviews and non-stop Twitter feeds provided by the Solutions and Community Marketing team. With more than 14,000 video views over the course of the three day conference, it’s clear that this new approach struck a chord with many out there as well.
Major Citrix Announcements at Synergy
Citrix Delivery Center took center stage with the unveiling of the next phase of their vision for transforming static datacenters into dynamic “delivery centers”. Just as XenServer did during its launch at iForum in October, XenDesktop stole the show at Synergy, marking Citrix’s official entry into the desktop virtualization market with enthusiasm and excitement.
Keynotes
The keynote sessions on both days held some great moments, from the highlight of the Citrix Delivery Center vision and product line, to a succession of industry luminaries from Microsoft, Intel, HP and CSC. HP’s keynote featured Scott Farrand, VP, ISS Software, and Roberto Moctezuma, VP, Desktop Solutions Organization, sharing the stage and the topic of virtualization. They presented a unified HP message that spanned ISS and PSG, and addressed virtualizing both servers and desktops. Demonstrating the solutions that make real the integrated message Scott and Roberto presented in their keynote were supporting demos in the HP booth. In addition, Russ Daniels was a huge hit as he presented a whiteboard session on ''Architecting the Cloud'' as the ''keynote'' in Citrix's new informal Geek Speak sessions.
Other HP Sessions and speaking opportunities: A Comprehensive Solution To Delivering Desktops From The Datacenter Kirk Manzer & Roger Cao & Andrew Hawthorn, HP
Integrating HP thin clients into XenDesktop deployments Tad Bodeman, HP
Color Your Servers Green Laura Frombach, Software Solutions Engineer, HP Allen Northcutt, Senior Systems/Software Engineer, HP Gary Hermansen, President and CEO, CSRware James Rabey, Citrix Systems
Meet the Developer - Insights into the ProLiant Virtual Console and Managing XenServer Ron Neyland, Mike Dickson, Tom Bonola , HP
Server performance: Scaling x86 & x64 with multi-core processors Laura Frombach, HP
Keynote videos are available here.
Session content is also available here.
Innovation Award
And lastly, in the most spirited competition this event has ever had, Cocomar won over the Synergy crowd and walked away as the winner of the 2008 Citrix Innovation Award against some pretty remarkable competition from Bechtel and Mutual of Omaha. Obviously excited and thrilled to receive this award, the folks from Cocomar were welcomed home to their town in Brazil with fireworks and celebration.
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