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The Fortezza da Basso in Florence, Italy |
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Florence Symposium/ITxpo 2003 Opens Monday
Friday, 7 March 2003
Inside a 16th century fortress in Florence, Italy, nearly 1,000 executives will hear about 21st century defenses.
Gartner's program of conferences kicks off this year with Symposium/ITxpo 2003 in the Fortezza da Basso in Florence. This great fortress, built on the outskirts of the medieval city, was never attacked and survives intact. But executives at Symposium will be all too familiar with attacks on today's corporate computer systems.
They will discover their concerns for data security are widely shared, making security a recurring theme. Gartner's latest survey of CIOs shows that data security has moved up to be the CIOs' second most important business concern for 2003. In previous years these issues were ranked only fourth in importance.
Nick Kirkland, Gartner group vice president for executive programs in the United Kingdom, will present the results of the latest Gartner CIO survey. He will reveal that IT budgets for 2003 will show no change over 2002, and that the top management priority for CIOs is now providing guidance for their boards of directors.
Kirkland's presentation is one of more than 70 to be delivered in Florence. A new feature for this year's program will be a series of extended, interactive sessions. Each afternoon there will be three sessions with several analysts presenting different perspectives on an issue. Attendees are encouraged to participate and contribute their own insights to what should be valuable interactive experiences.
Two keynote sessions will feature leading personalities in the vendor community. On Monday, Gartner's Peter Sondergaard and Mark Raskino will interview:
- Robert Lloyd, President Europe, the Middle East and Africa Operations for Cisco Systems
- Dario Scagliotti, CIO for Pirelli
- Peter Schleidt, Executive Vie President for Group Technology Development at Danske Bank
On Tuesday, Peter Sondergaard will be joined by Betsy Burton and Andy Butler to interview:
- Elie Simon, Vice President Sun Microsystems, EMEA
- Juan Rada, Senior Vice President, Oracle, EMEA
- Gerard Van Kemmel, Novell
The themes of Symposium will again focus on three areas:
- The Business Value of IT - how to measure, achieve and present it
- The Real-Time Enterprise - how to focus on reducing time in business processes
- Enterprise Architectures - how to design systems that will enable new business opportunities.
This year's ITxpo will have 30 exhibitors including those of global partners Mercury Interactive, Vanco and Xerox.
Symposium/ITxpo starts with tutorial sessions on Sunday 9 March and concludes on Wednesday 12 March.
Jonathan Green-Armytage
Gartner Staff
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