Open Source, Cloud and your business

Venue: Sussex County Cricket Club, BN3 3AN | City: Hove, United Kingdom
#OpenBrighton
Transforming your business with Open Source & the Cloud
Many organisations (Private & Not for profit) are now starting to look seriously or are in part using “the Cloud” and Open Source technology. However doubt still remains as to the business benefits that can be realised by utilising these tools.
If you have doubts don't worry you are not the only one. Often even IT resellers and consultants find it difficult to understand if they are offering the best solutions to their customers as they have limited visibility on what is available apart from the offerings from their standard vendors.
So you may be asking yourself:
Is "the Cloud" the right choice for my business? Are there other options that may be better suited for my type of business?
Is our IT consultant just trying to sell us the latest marketing hype or he's giving us the best advice for our organisation?
Why it seems like the "Cloud" is made up of US corporations?
Can't we use applications and services that are located where we can see them and made or provided by people we can meet?
Is that Open stuff any good for a business?
Why should my business look at something that is not made by a major brand? Isn't it risky?
Internet of Things, smart cities and digital are just buzzwords that sell advertising or are there some real and useful applications?
In this seminar we take a look at what Cloud & Open source technology actually is, how public and private sector organisations are utilising it, the business opportunities presented, explore a few of the common myths that surround those technologies and get into some real life case studies on how you and your organisation can benefit.
OK, you talk the talk but can you walk the walk?
We know that Cloud & Open Source are "just" technologies so we want you to get a real understanding of what those new (sometime recycled) buzzwords mean and how they may relate to your business or public sector organisation.
We want also to allow you to go back to the office and the next morning be able to test usable enterprise grade solutions straight away as talks are nice but it's much better to see things working and delivering results from day 1.
Who may find this event useful?
Almost anybody that is running a business of any size, IT resellers & consultants, software houses, ISPs & UK cloud providers and public sector organisations.
Invited participants will be mostly coming from Brighton and Sussex so it will be a good opportunity to meet with potential customers and business partners to exchange ideas.
The event is not made for technicians or developers even if some will be present to answer the most complex questions.
Why is it good for me:
- CEO/CFO: you are spending money for tools that should help making your company grow. Knowing what's available will help you in choosing better.
- IT resellers & consultants: you are providing advice to your customers. Are you sure that brand X is the best option you can offer?
- Software houses: so you developed that wonderful software but what's the best way to deliver it to your customers. On premises, hosted, Cloud?
- ISPs & UK Cloud providers: you are the backbone on UK data economy. Isn't it better if UK businesses use your services instead of looking elsewhere?
- Public sector: as you are spending our money & managing sensitive information about us you should evaluate if UK businesses could be a better option for hosting the data and support you with Open Source & locally developed solutions
Schedule and agenda
Note: agenda is being updated constantly. Stay tuned!
Looking for the technical sessions? Click here.
Time | Description | Speakers |
---|---|---|
09:00 / 09:30 | Registration & event presentation | |
09:30 / 10:00 | Cloud, Open Source or both? Understanding what "Cloud" really is. The definition, the services, the good, the bad and the ugly. There are very useful aspects of the Cloud to consider but there are also some issues that have security, economical and ethical impacts you may have not considered. | Paolo Vecchi Omnis Systems |
10:00 / 10:30 | Why G-Cloud? Getting your share of the £18bn Public Sector ICT spend opportunity |
Chris Farthing Advice Cloud |
10:30 / 11:00 |
Using Open-source in Education and Government |
Paul Stevens Catalyst IT Europe |
11:00 / 11:30 | Coffee break & time for networking/questions | |
11:30 / 12:00 | Enterprise secure identity in the cloud with Single Sign-On and strong authentication While Cloud has undoubtedly advantages, the security risks are quite known as well. Intranet still have the "power of control" over data. An efficient identity management with strong authentication through SecurePass can bring the same level of control used in Intranet across distributed cloud environments. |
Giuseppe Paternò SecurePass |
12:00 / 12:30 | There is a fundamental need to transform government and innovate in service delivery to meet the challenges of economic austerity. Fundamental and lasting change in government cannot be achieved without an acceleration in Open Systems across the sector. John will be setting out the key catalysts to drive systemic change including an Open Systems Alliance to reshape the market and opportunity to crowdsource solutions through Open Source development. | John Jackson CIO Camden Council |
12:30 / 13:30 | Lunch break and networking | |
13:30 / 14:00 | Technology Choices for Business Strategy Businesses compete fiercely in a market changing every faster. Public bodies too must deliver better for less. Their strategic response is to focus on users, iterate products, drive down costs, design for easy change, share knowledge and experience, and widen access to more kinds of suppliers and innovation. Find out how your technology choices can support business strategy. Tariq Rashid, speaking in a personal capacity, previously led on Open Source for the Cabinet Office. |
Tariq Rashid |
14:00 / 14:30 |
Open what? Does Open Source matter to my business? It may matter as, like it or not, you are using a lot of it but your suppliers don't want to tell you. We will also look at examples of how IT resellers let down their customers by selling them the wrong solutions for the job and how Councils spend (badly?) our money... |
Paolo Vecchi Omnis Systems |
14:30 / 15:00 |
Zarafa Communication Platform a safer & cost effective way to communicate |
Marco Welter Zarafa |
15:00 / 15:30 | LibreOffice-from-Collabora provides an enterprise hardened and supported build of the world's most popular Open Source 'Office' software LibreOffice. Large Corporate and Public Sector organisations now have a secure and long term supported alternative to proprietary Office software. | Tim Eyles Collabora |
15:30 / 16:00 | Coffee break, networking, QA | |
16:00 / 16:30 | Virtual Bridges VERDE it's a complete desktop virtualisation platform that allows to virtualise both Windows and Linux desktops facilitating an easy migration to the latter. | Chris McManus Virtual Bridges |
16:30 / 17:00 | How Linux and Open Source platforms allow us manage millions of emails and contacts on our mailing and CRM solutions | Andrew Mann Synchromedia |
17:00 / 17:30 | QA, networking, beers, wine. |
Please note that the agenda, date and location are being modified constantly to fit with new speakers confirmations and availability.
Technical sessions
These sessions are for CTO and sysadmins that want to know more about how to work and integrate the solutions presented. The sessions consist in brief a demonstration and technical QA. The sessions can be extended on request.
Time | Description | Speakers |
---|---|---|
10:00 / 10:30 | Replacing MS Exchange and Office365 with Zarafa. The demonstration includes also the presentation of the new video conferencing (WebRTC), on-line presence and email encryption. | Marco Welter Zarafa |
14:00 / 14:30 | Integrating SecurePass with your applications and devices. | Giuseppe Paternò SecurePass |
United Kingdom
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All Dates
- 18/11/2014 09:00
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