UNITE held its 2010 conference in May at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront Hotel. Highlights included a talk Monday morning by Unisys CEO Ed Coleman, who spoke about Unisys' results, and the company's commitment to customers and ClearPath, and later visited the vendor floor; as well as a keynote by IDC's John F. Gantz, who addressed the consumerization of IT.
Sessions started Sunday, and on that day, a session on the technology roadmap for the ClearPath platform garnered a standing-room-only crowd, Jim Shelton, chairman of the board for UNITE, tells 5 Minute Briefing. There were also well received lab sessions that started on Sunday and continued throughout the week, and EAE and BIS had a number of strong sessions as well. According to Shelton, ratings for the sessions were very high. Overall, two-thirds of the sessions were rated by two thirds or more of the attendees as "very good" and "excellent."
While the previous conference was held just 6 months ago, the May event drew approximately the same number of attendees, Shelton noted. "Everyone I talked to liked the date change," he said, observing that the date change suggestion came out of focus groups UNITE had in the fall. "We continued this and had a focus group meeting in Baltimore as well," he said. Focus group comments were positive regarding the date change as well as the venue, he added. "People loved Baltimore." UNITE will hold its next conference in spring 2011 and has just begun the search for the next location. UNITE members can expect an announcement about the venue this summer, said Shelton.
For more information, visit the UNITE website.