Bruce Backa is the founder of CriticalSites. A noted business leader and consultant in the IT Industry, he has acted as chief architect, technologist, and project manager for assignments involving large scale Technology and Implementation Strategies. He has held the positions of Director of Technology and Business Research for the American Stock Exchange (AMEX) and Director of Technology for American International Group. Mr. Backa has been responsible for the architecture, implementation and management of a worldwide Client/Server networking infrastructure for a Fortune 10 company, with a platform of over 600 Servers connecting 10,000 users across 50 cities throughout North America and off shore. In 1994, he founded NTP Software, a provider of business solutions for Windows NT and Windows 2000. At the recent World Economic Forum in Switzerland, Mr. Backa was recognized as a technology pioneer. This follows a similar award from the National Computer Conference in 1974 where he was honored as a part of the Dartmouth College team that invented computer timesharing.
Kevin Bedell is Editor-in-Chief of LinuxWorld Magazine. He holds a BS in Engineering from Michigan Tech and an MBA from The Crummer Graduate School of Business at Rollins College. Kevin is a seasoned software professional who has co-authored books for SAMS and O'Reilly Associates and who writes and speaks on Linux, Open Source and other Software Development topics.
Steve Benfield is VP, Business Development & Tech. Evangelism, ClearNova. In past lives he was CTO of SilverStream Software and the founding editor of SYS-CON's first magazine, PowerBuilder Developer's Journal, in 1994. He has spent his career helping IT organizations productively build real-world business applications.
Karl F. Best
Karl F. Best is the Director of Technical Operations for OASIS, where he is responsible for managing the consortium's industry standards efforts. He is a former Chief Strategy Officer and board member of the consortium, and has been involved in the XML/SGML industry since the early 1990s. Karl has been a member of a number of industry standards committees for SGML, XML, and associated standards, and a speaker at many industry conferences. He was previously employed by Novell, Adobe, and Sun Microsystems, designing and implementing electronic documentation systems.
Ron Bodkin is the founder of New Aspects of Software, which consults trains on enterprise Java applications with an emphasis on Aspect-Oriented Programming. Ron is also a member of AspectMentor, a consortium of AOP experts. Ron previously worked for the AspectJ group at Xerox PARC, where he led the first AOP implementation projects and training for customers. Prior to that, Ron was founder and CTO at C-bridge, a consultancy that delivered enterprise applications using Java and XML frameworks.
Alan Boucher is a Sr. Solutions Architect with Intel Corporation and has been with the company for 17 years. He is primarily responsible for designing and driving development of distributed, client-server software architectures for the Healthcare, Life Sciences, Manufacturing, Energy, O&G and Mobile/Wireless sectors. Alan is a key contributor to the cross-architecture work supporting Intel's new Mobilized Software Initiative. He has also written over 25 solution architecture blueprints covering the healthcare, manufacturing, financial services, energy, retail, security and digital media sectors. Alan joined Intel in 1987 and holds a degree in Electro-Mechanical Design. He also has multiple certifications in networking configuration / hardware design and software development (Intel, Novell and Microsoft).
Alex Bourgeois
Alex Bourgeois is a cofounder of Altisimo Computing, a J2ME consulting and training company. He has been programming in Java since 1997 and has developed numerous applications for private and commercial use. Alex also cochairs the New England Java Users Group J2ME Special Interest Group.
Gary Brunell, Vice President of Professional Services, joined Parasoft in the Fall of 2001 to develop and head the company's Professional Services division. Brunell is responsible for spearheading delivery services, technical support and training initiatives as well as establishing process-improvement infrastructure. Brunell brings over twenty years of sales and marketing experience in the high tech industry. He has been responsible for business development, professional services and organizational growth at Hewlett Packard, Texas Instruments, and Sybase Inc.
Kerry Champion is President and Founder of Westbridge Technology, a leading provider of XML Web Services Management and Security solutions. Prior to founding Westbridge Technology, Kerry was Senior Vice President of Product Development at Tumbleweed Communications, a leading supplier of e-mail security software and the provider of the S/MIME standard reference implementation. Prior to Tumbleweed, Kerry was a key member of the technical team at BroadVision, where he designed one of the first Web application servers and delivered the first major commercial product based on a full CORBA architecture. Kerry is a frequent writer and speaker on XML Web Services.
Dave Chappell is vice president and chief technology evangelist for Sonic Software, the leading provider of integration products and services for the real-time enterprise. Dave Chappell has over 20 years of experience in the software industry covering a broad range of roles including R&D, code-slinger, sales, support and marketing. He has a strong passion for shaping the future of technology, and enjoys sharing his knowledge and experience with others. Dave is well known for his writings and public lectures on the subjects of the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), Message Oriented Middleware (MOM), enterprise integration, and evolving standards and Web services. As Director of Engineering for Sonic Software, Chappell led the development effort for SonicMQ, which has grown to become synonymous with enterprise messaging and the Java Message Service (JMS). Dave is noted for authoring the popular O'Reilly books on enterprise messaging and Web services, and serves as technical editor for Web Services Journal.
Christophe Coenraets worked at Sybase/Powersoft from 1994 to 2000. He started working with Java in 1996 and became the technical evangelist for the company's Java and Internet Application Division. Christophe then joined Macromedia as the company's JRun and J2EE technical evangelist. He is currently senior evangelist for Macromedia.
Robert Crooks is Director of Curriculum Development for Macromedia. He has written several courses on creating internet applications including the beta version of Fast Track to Macromedia Flex.
Miguel de Icaza, co-founder and CTO of Ximian, is one of the foremost luminaries in the Linux development community and one of the world's most prominent advocates for Free Software. Before co-founding Ximian, Miguel was instrumental in the development of Linux for SPARC systems and the Midnight Commander file manager. Miguel is the founder and President of the GNOME Foundation. He was also the first recipient of the prestigious MIT Innovator of the Year award in 1999. Miguel has galvanized Ximian's efforts to make Linux accessible and available to the average computer user, and continues to reach out globally by working with international organizations such as eMexico to introduce affordable technology alternatives, like Linux, to other nations.
Donald A. DePalma, Ph.D., president of Common Sense Advisory, Inc., is an industry analyst, author, and corporate strategist with expertise in business- and marketing-focused application of technology. His book, "Business Without Borders: A Strategic Guide to Global Marketing" was published in 2002 by John Wiley & Sons. He is a member of the Board of Directors of GALA (Globalization and Localization Association) and serves on the Unicode Conference Steering Committee. Previously Don was the vice president of corporate strategy at Idiom Technologies. Prior to Idiom, he was a principal analyst at Forrester Research where he initiated the firm's coverage of content management (1996), application development for strategic Internet systems (1994), online marketing technologies (1998), multicultural marketing (1998), knowledge management (1996), and business globalization (1996). Prior to his career as a pundit, Don co-founded Interbase Software, was a key contributor to Digital Equipment Corporation's information management offerings, and labored in the ivory tower of academe, focusing on generative grammar, computational linguistics, and the historical phonology of Slavic languages.
Daniel Dura, Flash Application Developer Macromedia, Inc.From his early days developing applications using Pascal, C++, and Java, Daniel has always been fascinated with devising ways that individuals can use computers to enhance activities in their daily lives. His first introduction to Flash was in the days of Flash 4, but became obsessed with the technology when Flash 5 was released. A self-proclaimed Macromedia Flash evangelist, he has worked in many fields including education and telecommunications, where he has always been able to convey the value of the benefit of Macromedia Flash based technologies to executives and employees alike. His most recent speaking assignment was at Flash Forward 2003 in New York City where he spoke about the DRKs. He was recently named a member of Team Macromedia, focusing on Macromedia Central, and runs a blog found at http://www.danieldura.com.
Derek Ferguson is chief technology evangelist for Expand Beyond Corporation (www.xb.com), the worldwide leader in mobile software for enterprise management. He is also editor-in-chief of .NET Developer's Journal and author of the book Mobile .NET (Apress).
Chris is a Senior Technical Staff Member with IBM's Emerging Technology group, actively engaged in all aspects of the development of Web Services and e-business standards. He currently chairs the Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) Basic Profile Working Group. He also is an elected member of the OASIS Technical Advisory Board. Prior to joining IBM, Chris served as chair of the W3C Web Services Architecture WG and as Sun Microsystems' representative on the W3C XML Protocols WG, the OASIS ebXML Messaging TC, and the OASIS Security Services TC. Chris has been involved in the architecture, design, and engineering of distributed systems for most of his 25+ year career in IT and has been actively engaged in open standards development for XML and Web services since 1999.
Carl Franklin has been a figurehead in the VB community since the very early days when he wrote for Visual Basic Programmers Journal. He authored the Q&A column of that magazine as well as many feature articles for VBPJ and other magazines. He has authored two books for John Wiley & Sons on sockets programming in VB, and in 1994 he helped create the very first web site for VB developers, Carl & Gary's VB Home Page. He now teaches hands-on VB .NET classes for his company, Franklins.Net. He has taught developers from Citigroup, Aetna, Fidelity Investments, Fleet Bank, Foxwoods Casino, UTC, Hubbell, Microsoft, Mohegan Sun Casino, Northeast Utilities, to name a few. Carl is co-host of a weekly talk show on his website for .NET programmers called .NET Rocks! Carl is MSDN Regional Director for Connecticut.
Sam Greenblatt, senior vice president and chief architect for CA's Linux Technology Group, is responsible for the company's cross-brand integration of Linux technology. He joined CA in 1994 and has held senior management positions in cross-platform product strategy and development. Prior to CA, Greenblatt was chief technology officer and vice president of research and development at Candle Corporation. He has also held management positions at ARCO, Commodore International, and Arthur Andersen.
Chris Haddad is a Senior Consultant and strategist with the Burton Group's Application Platform Strategies service. He has worked on Web services infrastructure for the Apache Axis and Employease EConnect projects and was granted committer status on the Apache Axis project in 2002. He is currently authoring a book on Apache Axis for O'Reilly and Associates.
Steve Heckler is president of Accelebrate (http://www.accelebrate.com), an Atlanta-based IT training and consulting firm specializing in Web development and eLearning technologies. Steve's recent training and consulting clients include Delta Airlines, ExxonMobil, John Wiley & Sons Publishers, Pearson Education, and the US Air Force. Prior to founding Accelebrate in early 2002, Steve served nearly seven years as vice president of a leading US IT training firm. He holds bachelor's and master's degrees from Stanford University.
Chris Hjelm is chief technology officer for Orbitz and leads the company's technology strategies, engineering, site architecture and operations. In this role, he is responsible for all aspects of technology, ensuring that Orbitz continues its industry-leading role in providing the lowest cost and most consumer-friendly technology platform in online travel. Known for his work in creating and advancing world-class technology platforms at high-growth Internet companies as well as in Fortune 500 environments, before joining Orbitz Hjelm served as SVP for technology at eBay Inc., overseeing all aspects of its technology. Under his leadership, eBay achieved record levels of site quality and reliability during a period of accelerating global business growth and new product introductions.
Seth Hodgson is a Senior Application Engineer for the Web Team at Macromedia. His work there has centered on architecting, developing and maintaining a variety of public and backend web applications on macromedia.com. Seth is coauthor of Dynamic Publishing with ColdFusion MX, and he works extensively with Java, ColdFusion, Flash, and Oracle.
Simon Horwith is Chief Technology Officer of eTRILOGY Ltd., a software development company based in London, England. Simon has been using ColdFusion since version 1.5 and is a member of Team Macromedia. He is a Macromedia Certified Advanced ColdFusion and Flash Developer and is a Macromedia Certified Instructor. In addition to various online activities, he is a contributing author of several books, article, and technical papers, and is co-technical editor of ColdFusion Developer's Journal. When he's not building applications, Simon regularly presents at ColdFusion User Group Meetings and developer conferences around the world. Most recently, Simon launched cfstandards.org - an open source project committed to the development of standardized CFML modules for common Web application functionality. He may be reached at simon@horwith.com.
Kevin Hoyt is a Senior Sales Engineer with Macromedia. His responsibilities include daily communication with large groups of the user community in a variety of forums, and developing new content for developers, as well as keeping management informed about industry directions and emerging technologies. Kevin Hoyt has been using Flash since its second version and ColdFusion since version two. His thorough understanding of both products, and his exposure to the user community, makes him an ideal candidate to help guide the two communities to work more closely together.
Patrick Hynds, MCSD, MCSE+I, MCDBA, MCSA, MCP+Site Builder, MCT, is the Microsoft Regional Director for Boston, the CTO of CriticalSites, and has been recognized as a leader in the technology field. An expert on Microsoft technology (with, at last count, 55 Microsoft certifications) and experienced with other technologies as well (WebSphere, Sybase, Perl, Java, Unix, Netware, C++, etc.), Patrick previously taught freelance software development and network architecture. Prior to joining CriticalSites, he was a successful contractor who enjoyed mastering difficult troubleshooting assignments. A graduate of West Point and a Gulf War veteran, Patrick brings an uncommon level of dedication to his leadership role at CriticalSites. He has experience in addressing business challenges with blended IT solutions involving leading-edge database, Web, and hardware systems. In spite of the demands of his management role at CriticalSites, Patrick stays technical and in the trenches, acting as project manager and/or developer/engineer on selected projects throughout the year.
Tom Jordahl has been a Principal Engineer at Allaire/Macromedia for over six years and has spent the last two years on the front lines of Web services. He is one of the implementers of Apache Axis and is the Macromedia representative on the W3C Web Service Description WSDL 1.2 working group. Before getting involved in Web services, he was the technical lead for the ColdFusion on UNIX products. Tom is currently "back home" working on ColdFusion.
Richard Kasperowski, a cofounder of Altisimo Computing, has been programming in Java since 1997 and developed numerous applications for private and commercial use. Richard is also the cochair of the New England Java Users Group J2ME Special Interest Group.
With more than 9 years of experience in the software industry, Ashish Larivee has designed and developed many enterprise applications across a variety of platforms including Microsoft, Lotus Notes / Domino, and the J2EE platform. In 1999, Ms. Larivee joined SilverStream Software, acquired by Novell in July 2002, and has served in various roles in consulting, development and technical marketing. In her current role, she helps define the strategy and product direction across Novell's Web Application Development Products.
Julia Lerman is the owner of Julia Lerman, Inc (dba The Data Farm) and has been developing software applications and consulting to businesses since 1984. Julia is the founder and leader of the Vermont .NET users group (www.vtdotnet.org) as well as an INETA (International .NET Association) Committee Chair. She is a contributor to Visual Studio Magazine and MSDNAA, and in her pre-Visual Basic days, FoxPro Advisor. Julia is a Microsoft .NET MVP and an ASPInsider and also shares technical knowledge through her weblog at julialermaninc.com/blog.
David S. Linthicum is an internationally known distributed computing and application integration expert. In his career David has formed many of the ideas for modern distributed computing including EAI (Enterprise Application Integration) and B2B application integration, approaches and technology in wide use today. He is the former CTO of Mercator and has held key technology management rules with a number of organizations including CTO of SAGA Software, Mobil Oil, EDS, AT&T, and Ernst and Young. In addition, David has authored over 500 articles for major computing publications, and has monthly columns in several popular industry magazines including XML-Journal. David has authored or co-authored ten books including David Linthicum's Guide to Client/Server and Intranet Development, and the groundbreaking and best-selling Enterprise Application Integration released in 1999. His latest book, Next Generation Application Integration, was just released and is already a best seller.
Paul Lipton is a Senior Architect and Technology Strategist in the Office of the CTO at Computer Associates. An architect and developer of enterprise systems for more than 20 years, he has worked closely with key CA customers to solve important business challenges through the creation of mission-critical distributed solutions. He has represented CA in numerous standards organizations, such as the W3C, OASIS and the Java Community Process, and is currently serving on standards committees involved in the definition of new Web Services standards for management, orchestration, and choreography. He is a highly sought-after author and conference speaker, and has shared his knowledge with appreciative audiences on such diverse topics as Web services, Java, .NET, management and security, EAI, XML transformation frameworks, object databases, distributed systems, On-Demand computing, and wireless.
Based in San Diego, Brian Loesgen is a Principal Consultant with Neudesic, a premier southern California solution provider and system integrator, where he uses his expertise to architect and deliver advanced Microsoft technology solutions, and to translate new, leading-edge technologies into real-world value. He is a coauthor of the "Professional XML", "Professional ASP/XML", "Professional Windows DNA", "Professional ASP.NET Web Services" and "Professional VB.NET Web Services" books from Wrox, and is currently working on the "BizTalk Server 2004 Developers Guide", due in 2004. In addition, Brian has written technical white papers for Intel, Microsoft and others. Brian has spoken at numerous major technical conferences worldwide. Brian is a co-founder and President of the International .NET Association (ineta.org). He co-leads the San Diego .NET user group, and leads the San Diego Software Industry Council Web Services SIG.
James McGovern is an industry thought leader and the author of the bestselling book: A Practical Guide to Enterprise Architecture (Prentice Hall). He is working on two upcoming books entitled: Agile Enterprise Architecture and Enterprise SOA. He is employed as an Enterprise Architect for The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. He holds industry certifications from Microsoft, Cisco and Sun. He is member of the Java Community Process and of the Worldwide Institute of Software Architects.
Neil McGovern has over 15 years experience in the software industry. Currently Neil is responsible for platform strategy for Sybase's infrastructure product line, including its enterprise-class RDBMS, Sybase ASE, and integration, portal and tools product lines. Prior to that, Neil was responsible for building the Sybase (New Era of Networks) Adapter suites, commonly recognized as one of the most advanced and complete set of Adapters in the EAI marketplace. Neil developed ERP package expertise as CTO of Convoy Corporation, which specialized in PeopleSoft integration. He led the Development and Professional Services teams for Convoy Corporation, which was purchased by Sybase (New Era of Networks) in 1999 after recording triple digit growth for three consecutive years.
Anne Thomas Manes is a Research Director at Burton Group, a research, consulting, and advisory firm. Anne leads research for the Application Platform Strategies service. Named one of NetworkWorld's "50 Most Powerful People in Networking," in 2002 and one of Enterprise Systems Journal's "Power 100 IT Leaders," in 2001, Anne is a renowned technologist in the Web services space. Anne participates in standards development at W3C and OASIS. She is a member of the editorial board of Web Services Journal. She is a frequent speaker at trade shows and author of numerous articles and the book, "Web Services: A Manager's Guide," published by Addison Wesley. Prior to joining Burton Group, Anne was chief technology officer at Systinet, a Web services infrastructure company, and before that she pioneered Sun's Web services strategy. A 24-year industry veteran, Anne developed her expertise working at a number of the world's leading hardware and software companies. You can reach Anne via e-mail at anne@manes.net or through her Web site at http://www.bowlight.net.
David Mendels is Senior Vice President, Macromedia Tools and Platforms. Since joining Macromedia in 1992 he's played a major role in the development of Macromedia's product and business strategies and in his current role supervises the gamut of Macromedia's designer and developer products, including Flex, Flash, Dreamweaver, and ColdFusion. In that capacity, he has overall responsibility for the business unit and directly manages product marketing, product management, and product development. Mendels began his career at Macromedia in the international department, moving to Japan to lead the company's field operations, sales, and marketing there. After returning to the United States in 1995, Mendels held positions running business development, alliances as well as general management of a number of Macromedia product groups.
Vaidyanathan Nagarajan is the author of two recent books: Java 2 Enterprise Edition Bible (Wiley) and XQuery: Kick Start (Sam's Publishing). He is employed as an Enterprise Developer for the Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. He holds an MBA from Western New England College and a Masters degree in mathematics and computer science from the Indian Institute of Technology.
Ted Neward is an independent software development architect and mentor in the Sacramento, California area. He is the author of a number of books, including "Server-Based Java Programming" (Manning), the forthcoming "Effective Enterprise Java" (Addison-Wesley) and "SSCLI Essentials" (OReilly) and co-author of "C# In a Nutshell" (O'Reilly) with Peter Drayton and Ben Albahari. He is also an instructor with DevelopMentor, where he teaches and authors both the Java and .NET curriculum. He speaks frequently for technology user groups (most often for the Sacramento Java User's Group), and writes technical papers for www.javageeks.com and www.clrgeeks.com. He currently labors on behalf of the University of California, Davis, architecting a rebuild of the Davis Accounting and Financial Information Services software system. Past clients include companies like Pacific Bell, EdFund, Synergex and Intuit.
In the role of Chief Technology Officer at IONA, Eric is responsible for IONA's technology roadmap and the direction of IONA's e-Business Platforms as relates to standards adoption, architecture, and product design. Eric, a member of the XML Protocols and Web Services Architecture working groups at the W3C and IONA's Advisory Committee representative to UDDI.org, is the author of Understanding Web Services (2002, Addison Wesley), co-author of Principles of Transaction Processing (1997, Morgan Kaufmann), author of numerous whitepapers and articles.
Ketan Patel serves as a principal for Synapsys Technology Corporation. While at Synapsys Ketan has invented a behavior based consulting methodology and a minimally invasive approach to building solutions. He has successfully brought information-based products to market in the telecommunications, healthcare, and supply chain industries. Ketan has written several articles and spoken at technical and business trade shows alike
David Orchard is a technical director in BEA Systems' CTO Office, focusing on Web services standards. He is a member of the W3C Technical Architecture Group, Web services Architecture, XML Protocol, and Advisory committees. He is currently or has been a co-editor of the Web services Architecture, Web services Usage Scenarios, XML Link, XInclude, WS-Coordination, WS-ReliableMessaging, WS-Addressing and SOAP-Conversation specifications. He has written numerous technical articles and is a frequent speaker on various Internet related technologies.
Chris Peltz is a senior software consultant within HP's Developer Resources Organization (http://devresource.hp.com). He provides technical and architectural consulting to enterprise customers in the areas of J2EE, Web services, and application management. Chris has over 10 years of software experience in object-oriented technologies, 4GL development, GIS, and Web applications design. He has been published in Web Services Journal, XML-Journal, and IEEE Computer magazine, and has also presented at technical conferences such as HP World, Web Services Edge, and JavaOne.
Bill Roth is Sr. Technical Evangelist for E.piphany. With over 15 years in this industry, he has played numerous roles in engineering and product marketing including Program Manager for Java IDL, and managing Product Marketing and Product Management for J2EE 1.2 at Sun.
Matt Russell, MCSD, MCAD, MCDBA, MCSA is a hands-on technologist, instructor and author who works as a Technical Architect out of the Salem New Hampshire office of Internosis. He has focused on Knowledge Management and Business Process Automation solutions using Microsoft technologies. He has worked with Microsoft directly on SharePoint and InfoPath projects in pre-release stages of development. Most recently he has developed and deployed an integrated Office System 2003 solution to over 1400 users worldwide.
Jim is Principal QA Engineer for the ColdFusion product line at Macromedia. Jim's primary responsibilities include testing and optimizing ColdFusion product performance. Jim has worked for Macromedia and Allaire since June 2000. He has over seven years experience building Web applications with ColdFusion and has built e-commerce and enterprise Web applications for such customers as the U.S. Mint, FAA, Pfizer, The BOC Group, and Schering-Plough. Jim is an alumnus of the Johns Hopkins University.
Margo Seltzer is Chief Technology Officer of Sleepcat Software. A co-founder of Sleepycat Software and one of the original authors of Berkeley DB, Seltzer directs the company's technology innovation. She has more than 20 years of industry experience in applications, databases, transaction processing, storage systems, and hardware design at firms that include Sequoia Systems, Stratus Computer Systems and Kendall Square Research. As Herchel Smith Professor of Computer Science and Associate Dean for Computer Science and Engineering at Harvard University, Seltzer is globally recognized as an expert in operating, database and transactional storage systems. She holds an AB degree in Applied Mathematics from Harvard/Radcliffe College and a PhD in Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley.
Davanum Srinivas is a Senior Architect in the Office of the CTO at Computer Associates. He is currently the Vice-President/Chairman of Webservices.apache.org and a committer on the Apache Axis project. He is currently authoring a book on Apache Axis for O'Reilly and Associates.
Michael Stiefel, principal of Reliable Software, Inc. is a consultant on software architecture and development, and the alignment of information technology with business goals. His current work involves training in distributed applications development, and in software best practices, in .NET, C#, Web services, C++, SQL Server, COM, DCOM, and MTS. He advises on IT strategy and planning, including budgeting, hiring, and growth management. Michael is involved with design and implementation of middle-tier and back-end components for transactional n-tier Internet and Intranet applications including Web services. He also is responsible for requirements analysis, project plan development, and design document development. He serves as an Expert Witness for intellectual property cases. Stiefel was a Principal Software Engineer for Prime Computer, developing a mechanical CAD/CAM database system. He also worked for Microsoft assisting their Fortune 500 clients in developing client/server solutions. He is a Visiting Scholar at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Science, Technology and Society Program and conducts undergraduate seminars on the practice of engineering. As Adjunct faculty, Stiefel has taught graduate and undergraduate software engineering courses at Northeastern University and Framingham State University. Michael Stiefel's education is from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with a Interdisciplinary Ph.D degree in Nuclear Engineering, Political Science, and History of Technology; M.S. in Nuclear Engineering; and B.S. in Electrical Engineering. He is an active member of Independent Computer Consultants Association and the IEEE Consultants Network.
Dan is currently an independent software consultant for his own firm, Stieglitech LLC. Born in New York City, he left only briefly to obtain his B.S. in computer science from Rutgers University. He returned to New York and began his professional career writing software for the technology division of Goldman Sachs & Co. In 1999, he left Goldman to co-found an internet start-up company (everybody was doing it). One year and many tax deductions later, Dan formed Stieglitech and began consulting for major Wall Street firms such as TIAA-CREF and Bank of New York. His latest efforts are focused on developing a strategy and technical foundation for practical service-oriented architectures. Stieglitech specializes in application development with J2EE technologies, XML, and Web services.
Dr. Bob Sutor is Director of Marketing for IBM's WebSphere Foundation Software as well as its Web services and SOA efforts. A 21 year veteran of IBM, Sutor has spent most of his career in IBM Research, specializing in symbolic computation and Internet publishing. In 1999 he moved to the IBM Software Group and focused on jump starting industry use of XML. This led to positions on the Board of Directors of the OASIS standards group and the vice chairmanship of the ebXML effort, a joint OASIS/United Nations endeavor. Sutor then led IBM's industry standards and Web services strategy efforts. He currently leads IBM's marketing efforts around the WebSphere Application Server and enterprise modernization software. Sutor is a frequent speaker on WebSphere, Web services, and Service Oriented Architecture. He is widely cited in the press and was recently featured in interviews in the Harvard Business Review and InfoWorld.
Dave Thomson was one of the founding employees of Object Technology International (OTI), a company IBM acquired in 1996 and which has become the foundation for IBM's Ottawa Lab and many of the technologies underlying IBM's tool products. Prior to OTI's integration with IBM Dave served as VP Development at OTI. Dave led the teams that delivered the underlying IDE technology in many of IBM's award-winning products including: VisualAge for Smalltalk, VisualAge for Java, and the Eclipse platform. Dave was the principal architect behind the transition of IBM's internal workbench development effort into the open source project we now know as Eclipse. Dave is an IBM Distinguished Engineer and is responsible for IBM's Eclipse Development team, and serves as a director on the board of the Eclipse Foundation.
Peter Varhol is a Product Manager at Compuware Corporation, with graduate degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science, and has worked in software development and systems management. As a former college professor, he has substantial experience speaking on technical topics. He has written extensively on software development topics in a variety of trade magazines.
Glenda Vigoreaux has been a Certified Macromedia Instructor and Developer for the last 5 years. She has been a technical trainer for over 10 years and has a Master of Science degree in Computer Information Systems. She is currently the lead ColdFusion developer for Business Systems Consultants, Inc. the most successful reseller and services provider of software for associations in the greater Chicago area. She is also a sales engineer and Macromedia trainer for Think Innovative Media, an interactive multimedia design company and Macromedia training partner based in Milwaukee, WI. Her most recent application can be found at http://members.surgonc.org/meeting/page2.cfm. The website is a meeting registration application for the Annual Cancer Symposium of the Society of Surgical Oncology.
Jim Wilson is the President and Cofounder of JW Hedgehog, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in the integration of smart devices as part of enterprise solutions with a focus on the .NET Compact Framework, .Microsoft .NET Framework, Web Services and other XML related technologies. He develops and teaches DevelopMentor's Mobility training course, was one of Microsoft's original 5 MVPs for the .NET Compact Framework, has written articles for numerous publications and spoken at a myriad number of events, including Microsoft's Tech Ed and Mobility Developers Conference.
Joe Winchester, Desktop Technologies Editor of Java Developer's Journal, is a software developer working on WebSphere development tools for IBM in Hursley, UK where he can be contacted at winchest@uk.ibm.com.
Bob Zurek, VP of Advanced Technology, Ascential Software, is responsible for Ascential's overall product strategy. He is instrumental in developing and driving its enterprise integration strategy, including its parallel processing framework, data quality and Web services strategies. Previously, he was a senior analyst with Forrester Research and prior to Forrester, he held senior management positions at LumaPath, Centive Systems, and Sybase.
About SYS-CON Events Staff The staff of SYS-CON Events can answer any queries you may have about EDGE 2004 24-26 February, 2004 in Boston, MA.
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Karl F. Best is the Director of Technical Operations for OASIS, where he is responsible for managing the consortium's industry standards efforts. He is a former Chief Strategy Officer and board member of the consortium, and has been involved in the XML/SGML industry since the early 1990s. Karl has been a member of a number of industry standards committees for SGML, XML, and associated standards, and a speaker at many industry conferences. He was previously employed by Novell, Adobe, and Sun Microsystems, designing and implementing electronic documentation systems. 
Alex Bourgeois is a cofounder of Altisimo Computing, a J2ME consulting and training company. He has been programming in Java since 1997 and has developed numerous applications for private and commercial use. Alex also cochairs the New England Java Users Group J2ME Special Interest Group. 
Daniel Dura, Flash Application Developer Macromedia, Inc.From his early days developing applications using Pascal, C++, and Java, Daniel has always been fascinated with devising ways that individuals can use computers to enhance activities in their daily lives. His first introduction to Flash was in the days of Flash 4, but became obsessed with the technology when Flash 5 was released. A self-proclaimed Macromedia Flash evangelist, he has worked in many fields including education and telecommunications, where he has always been able to convey the value of the benefit of Macromedia Flash based technologies to executives and employees alike. His most recent speaking assignment was at Flash Forward 2003 in New York City where he spoke about the DRKs. He was recently named a member of Team Macromedia, focusing on Macromedia Central, and runs a blog found at 
Richard Kasperowski, a cofounder of Altisimo Computing, has been programming in Java since 1997 and developed numerous applications for private and commercial use. Richard is also the cochair of the New England Java Users Group J2ME Special Interest Group. 
Margo Seltzer is Chief Technology Officer of Sleepcat Software. A co-founder of Sleepycat Software and one of the original authors of Berkeley DB, Seltzer directs the company's technology innovation. She has more than 20 years of industry experience in applications, databases, transaction processing, storage systems, and hardware design at firms that include Sequoia Systems, Stratus Computer Systems and Kendall Square Research. As Herchel Smith Professor of Computer Science and Associate Dean for Computer Science and Engineering at Harvard University, Seltzer is globally recognized as an expert in operating, database and transactional storage systems. She holds an AB degree in Applied Mathematics from Harvard/Radcliffe College and a PhD in Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley.
