BrainShare 2001 success

The resounding success of the sixth annual Novell BrainShare conference, held at the Sandton Convention Centre recently, has once again firmly entrenched BrainShare as one of SA`s leading technical development conferences. The 450 delegates and speakers from nine different countries were full of praise for what this year`s conference had to offer.

"Delegates had over 50 technical sessions to choose from, and were offered insight into the latest in networking technology, including our most recent offering, NetWare 6," says marketing manager Trish Barwick. "NetWare 6 is more powerful and feature-rich than the previous versions. The feedback we received from BrainShare delegates confirmed once and for all that NetWare 6 is a definite winner."

Barwick adds that a representative from Gartner was heard to comment: "NetWare 6 is a product sent from heaven."

"Additionally, the announcement by UK, Middle East and SA regional director Steve Brown that Novell SA was the number-one performer in sales operations worldwide during the third quarter, is a strong indication of the strength of the business coming out of this country," she says.

Novell`s recent acquisition of Cambridge Technology Partners as a wholly owned subsidiary was also the subject of much attention at this year`s BrainShare. According to Barwick, the Cambridge stand generated much interest and the Cambridge representatives were inundated with queries. "Through Cambridge, Novell will offer a wide range of e-business-related consulting services that address vertical industries and broad systems integration requirements," she explains. "This will significantly expand Novell`s ability to deliver consulting support to customers and other IT services companies."

Barwick says that many non-Novell customers also attended BrainShare this year. "They had heard about our e-business strategies and e-provisioning and are very keen to implement these solutions in a non-Novell environment."

One Novell partner and BrainShare exhibitor, Inobits technical director Dawie Human, had this to say about the conference: "BrainShare is essential for creating awareness of our company. Our stand was geared towards showing how information from disparate systems such as Microsoft Active Directory and NDS can be brought together to enable all the systems in the company to work together as a whole."

The three-day conference was followed by the traditional CNE Bootcamp weekend, which this year was held at Klein Kariba near Warmbaths. Novell channel manager for Africa, Manoj Bhoola says besides focusing on knowledge transfer, the bootcamps also provide CNEs with the opportunity to have a lot of fun while networking with representatives from Novell`s international offices.

"This year we had speakers from Germany, the US and the UK, who between them gave the CNEs all the inside information - which they don`t normally get to hear - on our top products," he says. "For the techies, it was five hours of pure heaven and they loved it. Immense interest was shown in our new products, especially NetWare 6, while the sessions on Groupware and Portals also proved very popular.

"The fun sessions involved a variety of team activities, such as navigating using a GPS and compass," he continues. "The CNEs found these activities extremely challenging and concluded that irrespective of the level of networking skills they might have, bush survival skills are essential as well."

Bhoola says the CNEs also made use of every opportunity to build relationships with the international Novell representatives. "By the end of the week-end all were in agreement that they had not only learned a lot, but had had much fun doing so, and are already looking forward to next year`s bootcamp," he concludes.