This panel of well-known industry analysts and experts will discuss and dissect the latest enterprise architecture trends, challenges and opportunities facing local, state and national government agencies and departments. Among the hot issues explored on the panel will be the current state of government SOA skills and labor, the role of enterprise frameworks such as TOGAF, and the adoption of professional certification standards like ITAC. The panel will be recorded as a live BriefingsDirect™ podcast which will be available online at opengroup.org and ZDNet.com after the conference.

Moderaor:
Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst, Interarbor Solutions
Dana Gardner is president and principal analyst at Interarbor Solutions, an enterprise IT analysis, market research, and consulting firm. Gardner, a leading identifier of software productivity trends and new IT business growth opportunities, honed his skills and refined his insights as an industry analyst, pundit, and news editor covering the emerging software development and enterprise infrastructure arenas for the last 17 years.

Gardner tracks and analyzes a critical set of enterprise software technologies and business development issues: Web services, application development tools, and application lifecycle optimization techniques. His specific interests include enterprise infrastructure and processes, developer tool advances and trends, embedded software advances, infrastructure outsourcing and utility usage trends, SOA infrastructure and integration developments, and open source development and deployment initiatives.

As a software strategies blogger on ZDNet and BriefingsDirect and via a podcast series on BriefingsDirect, his analysis, commentary and interviews become conversational, and powerfully distributed via social networking and search.

Gardner is a former senior analyst at Yankee Group, and a former editor-at-large and the founding online news editor at InfoWorld.com. He was a founding member of the influential Gillmor Gang podcast.

Panelists include:

Eric Knorr, Editor in Chief, InfoWorld
Eric Knorr is Editor in Chief at InfoWorld. He brings 20 years of technology journalism experience to the planning, development, and execution of feature articles that serve the needs of enterprise IT managers.

Eric is the former editor of PC World magazine, the creator of the best-selling The PC Bible, a founding editor of CNET, and a veteran of several dot-com follies. A winner of the Neal and Computer Press Awards for journalistic excellence, he has written hundreds of articles on desktop and enterprise technology. He has a bachelor of arts from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Joe McKendrick, Author & Consultant
Joe McKendrick is a nationally published author and consultant with deep knowledge and insights regarding trends and developments in the technology industry. He is a contributing editor to a number of national and international publications and Websites including Database Trends & Applications, ZDNet, and Webservices.Org. He also serves as analyst for Evans Data Corp., and is lead analyst for Evans' Web services and enterprise development management issues surveys.

Tony Baer, SOA Analyst, Ovum
Tony Baer is a well-published IT analyst with over 15 years background in enterprise systems and manufacturing. A frequent speaker at IT conferences, Baer focuses on strategic technology utilization for the enterprise. Baer studies implementation issues in distributed data management, application development, data warehousing, and leading enterprise application areas including ERP, supply chain planning, and customer relationship management. As co-author of several books covering J2EE and .NET technologies, Baer is an authority on emerging platforms. Previously chief analyst for Computerwire's Computer Finance, Baer is a leading authority on IT economics and cost of ownership issues.

Andras Szakal, Chief Architect IBM Federal Software Group
Mr. Szakal is an IBM Distinguished Engineer and Chief Architect of IBM's Federal Software business unit. He is also an IBM Senior Certified Software IT Architect and an IBM Certified SOA Solution Designer. His responsibilities include developing e-Government software architectures using IBM middleware and leading the IBM federal government software IT architect team.

Mr. Szakal holds undergraduate degrees in Biology and Computer Science and a Masters Degree in Computer Science from James Madison University.

Mr. Szakal has been a driving force behind IBM's adoption of government IT standards and is a member of the IBM Software Group Strategy Team. The team he leads has been responsible for helping the federal government move e-Government into the On-Demand era through the application of SOA. His team has been directly involved with multiple, high-profile, successful government software and services engagements based on open standards and open source.

Mr. Szakal represents IBM SWG on the Board of Directors of The Open Group. He currently holds the Chair of the IT Architect Profession Certification Standard (ITAC) within the Open Group.

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