Citrix iForum US: Moving from October to May?

Written on Oct 19 2007 16,340 views, 4 comments

by Brian Madden

There’s a rumor coming from the folks in Ft. Lauderdale that Citrix will move their global iForum event to May of each year instead of October.

The global iForum conference has historically been Citrix’s largest sales and marketing conference, although now they’re trying to get it to become more of a general application delivery industry event.

Originally called “Thinergy,” 2007 will be the tenth iForum in the US! (Has anyone been to all ten? This year will be my seventh.)

The US iForum has been in the September / October / November timeframe for the past ten years. It started out in Orlando, but more recently it’s been alternating between Orlando and Las Vegas. This year’s iForum is next week in Las Vegas. I will be there, along with several others, blogging about it on BrianMadden.com.

After ten years, why the move to May? Some people have suggested that by holding iForum earlier, there will be six extra months of sales in the year to really capitalize on the momentum of the conference. Other people think it’s related to VMworld, VMware’s giant (3x bigger than iForum) conference. Still others have suggested that it will be nice to move iForum out of hurricane season.

As for locations, a few people have mentioned a move to a more central location in the US to appeal to attendees from both coasts, with Houston being the most likely possibility.

So, make iForum more independent, more technical, move it to the spring, and move it to the central US? Sounds like a good plan to me!

Oh, um, by the way, BriForum 2008, the indpendent application delivery conference that we’ve been doing each spring since 2005, will be June 16-18, 2008, in Chicago. (Remember that we moved it to Chicago in 2007 so that we could be more central and appeal to attendees from both coasts.)

Comments

Guest wrote Thin Dinner

on Fri, Oct 19 2007 9:49 AM

Speaking of iForum, a bunch of the Thin List will be getting together Sunday Night for dinner at the Red Square (7:00 pm). Then again on Monday night @ 10:00 pm for drinks at the rumjungle. Everyone in invited to go, and if you decide to go to the Dinner on Sunday, please call and make reservations (I could only get a table so big without having to go through catering). The number to the restaurant is 702-623-7404. Joe

Paddy Harrington wrote Been to them all

on Fri, Oct 19 2007 2:47 PM

And I'm guessing the move to Vegas 2 years back served 2 purposes: 1) Give the west coast and Asia-Pac people a shorter trip. 2) Orlando is great to bring the family along to. Vegas is the adults playground. Nice way to balance them. It would be nice for iForum to become a larger event, with more parts of the industry attending. I think the more companies Citrix acquires, the better chance we'll see that. With CPS being the focus for so many years, it was hard to see beyond that. But with the networking, the VDI/DDI play, and the virtualization and provisioning (streaming), there's more of a chance for other companies to get involved.

Aaron Simms wrote Independent?

on Fri, Oct 19 2007 3:32 PM

I would like to see iForum become more independent also. But until the sponsor requirements change it's not going to be independent:
Technology Partners interested in becoming sponsors must submit a Complementary Positioning document to Citrix. Upon Citrix’s acceptance of the Complementary Positioning document, Technology Partners may be invited to become a Citrix App Delivery Expo sponsor. To be eligible to sponsor the Citrix App Delivery Expo, partners must be good standing members of the Citrix Global Alliance Partner Program. To demonstrate good standing, partners must have paid all applicable 2007 program fees.

Guest wrote Going to May and Going to be in Texas

on Mon, Nov 12 2007 1:20 PM

This is likely known by all now but yes - in Texas in may.

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