“Linux looks likely to receive some serious scrutiny — and
a little respect — at COMDEX. The colocated Linux Business Expo
expects an unprecedented number of attendees, Linus Torvalds shares
keynote honors with some of the industry’s biggest names, and the
business expo includes seminars that ask hard questions about
putting Linux to work — perhaps a sign that the rest of the world
is coming around….“
“The Linux Business Expo (LBE) is a separate show (owned, like
COMDEX, by Ziff-Davis Events) with its own conference and vendor
expo, both concurrent and colocated with COMDEX. Attendance at LBE
doesn’t require separate registration, though; COMDEX registrants
who purchased the Millennium Passport package can simply go to LBE
whenever the mood strikes. The LBE management, according to
representative Amy Groden, estimates that between 30,000 and 35,000
COMDEX attendees “have a significant interest in Linux” and will
attend LBE. If this estimate pans out, that will make LBE by far
the largest Linux conference to date. The International Data
Group’s highly successful LinuxWorld Conference and Expo, held in
both March and August of this year, attracted between 6,000 and
8,000 attendees on each occasion.”
“The projected attendance numbers are especially mind-boggling
because LBE isn’t catering in the least to either the Linux
gearhead-and-hacker crowd or to aficionados of open source in its
multifarious manifestations. The organizers are going after the
people who make the big IT strategy decisions and approve the
purchase orders. True, there will be an eight-session technical
track in the two-day conference. Its focus, however, is not on nuts
and bolts, but rather on simply clueing people in on the tools and
technologies — including open source ones — that run on top of
Linux and make it a productive platform. And, in an obvious
acknowledgment of the computing environments from which many
attendees will come, there’s no attempt to avoid the W-word. Two of
the technical-track sessions are “Using Linux with Windows: the
WINE project” and “Experiences with Linux versus Windows NT
servers.” Speakers in the technical track include high-level execs
from Red Hat, SuSE, VA Linux Systems, TurboLinux, Cygnus, SGI,
Sendmail, and Linuxcare. Miguel de Icaza, who’s slated to give a
presentation about GNOME, seems like a techie island in a sea of
suits.”