Kicking off the New Year with it’s first set of events, Encompass Canada, in collaboration with HP (Canada) Co., presented one-day technical seminars in Toronto on Feb. 20 and Montreal on Feb. 22, 2007. These seminars are part of Encompass Canada’s ongoing ‘Technical Directions’ - a series of information exchange events for members, HP users and like-minded industry consultants to interact with presenters from HP technical and engineering staff, HP management, HP partners, and industry consultants on relevant topics.

Presenters for the seminar included HP staff from HP (Canada) Co. and HP Company in the U.S. and HP partner consultants. Of note in attendance is Sue Skonetski, Manager, OpenVMS Customer and Field Programs (organizer of the annual HP VMS Boot Camp) from HP in Nashua, New Hampshire, and Bruce Ellis (living icon of the DECUS era), President of BRUDEN Corporation. Kevin FitzPatrick, a former OpenVMS Ambassador and now the Global Business Manager with BRUDEN and Encompass Canada Board member, was also one of the key presenters. More information on all the presenters can be found on the archived seminar presenters page.

The core topic of the seminar agenda centered around OpenVMS strategies and directions. Presentations included discussions on HP’s new c-Class Bladesystem, storage products and solutions, HP SAN management solutions, and transitioning to Itanium. Since Encompass Canada is an HP user group representing HP users, plans are to eventually include HP-UX and related topic stream for future seminars. Complete agenda for the Toronto seminar is available on the archived seminar agenda page.

As with previous seminars, the sessions were well attended with productive information exchange and lively interaction between attendees and presenters. Prizes from HP and sponsors were raffled off throughout the day with the grand prize, an HP branded backpack provided by HP DSPP (Developer and Solution Partner Program), at the end of the day.

Encompass Canada would like to thank HP (Canada) Co., Sue Skonetski and the HP offices in the U.S., Kevin FitzPatrick and the Encompass Canada board, Bruce Ellis, and all the participating sponsors for making the Toronto seminar possible and contributing to another successful event.

Oh yes, about that member who travelled all the way from Montreal – to meet Sue – and take care of some unfinished business. As a member of the HP user community, interactive information exchange is the norm but when things get a bit over enthusiastic, one needs to draw the line and take matters into one’s hands (and the with the help of other hands) as the photos illustrate! .

Presentation notes from the Toronto and Montreal seminars can be downloaded from this page.