A full day seminar presented by William Zachmann, President, Canopus Research, Inc. This workshop is being coordinated by Dr. Marc Haines, Professor of Management Information Systems at the School of Business Administration, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee.

Overview

Picking the right platforms is a critical success factor for your information technology strategy. Betting on the wrong platform costs more, takes longer, and helps your competitors. This seminar helps you pick the winning platform for your enterprise.

Topics

1. why are information technology platforms important? Platform choices create, but also define and limit, the future horizon of possibilities for application development and deployment. It is crucial to pick platforms that make it easy to deliver long-term business value with minimal cost and constraints. 2. why are web service platforms important? Enterprise platforms from all the information technology vendors (IBM, Microsoft, Sun, Oracle, and all the rest) are rapidly evolving into web services platforms. By the end of the decade, enterprise IT platform choices and web services platform choices will be indistinguishable. 3. WHY ARE LEGACY SYSTEMS IMPORTANT FOR FUTURE PLANNING? Legacy systems embody the constraints and limitations of prior platform choices - witting or unwitting. Realistic planning and future platform choice must take these constraints and limitations fully into account. 4. WHAT ARE THE KEY PLATFORM OPTIONS TODAY - AND TOMORROW? Microsoft Windows and Linux are the key operating system platforms. Java/J2EE and Windows .NET are the key application development/deployment platforms. But there are some other options that must not be overlooked. 5. WHAT ARE THE RIGHT CRITERIA FOR CHOOSING AMONG THEM? The bottom line is to assess and determine anticipated long-term business value to the enterprise. The trick is how to do that. That is one of the core topics of the seminar. 6. HOW DO I PICK THE RIGHT PLATFORM FOR MY ENTERPRISE? The key is rightly to combine the inherent "green field" potential of the emerging web services platform alternatives with the realistic legacy constraints of the enterprise to meet its future business requirements. How to do this is also a core topic of the seminar.

About the speaker

William F. Zachmann, President, Canopus Reseach, Inc., is a world renowned information technology industry analyst, columnist, and lecturer with extensive industry experience and substantial technical expertise. Listed in Whos Who in America and Whos Who in the World, he still insists on "getting his hands dirty" with current technologies for real-world business clients. One of his favorite sayings is "He or she who tastes knows!" Mr. Zachmann adds: "Most folks in the IT guru business are professional pontificators with little real-world experience. I know! Many of them worked for me at one time or another. I personally am not much interested in abstract theory. What counts is real business value delivered. That is the ultimate measure of IT success!" Mr. Zachmann is a graduate of Harvard College (1964).

Who should Attend?

Business and IT executives, managers, professional developers, system designers, and staff members and academics concerned with successful IT strategies for the enterprise should attend this workshop.

Coordinator

This technology event is being coordinated by Dr. Marc Haines, Assistant Professor of Management Information Systems at the School of Business Administration, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.