UniForum '96 Preview: Applied Advanced Technologies Track

Real-World Solutions at the Leading Edge

Advanced IT technology always puts us in a double bind. We want the latest solutions, but we also need technologies that are practical. Otherwise, as we all know, leading edge quickly becomes bleeding edge.

This problem will addressed at the Applied Advanced Technologies Track sessions this year at UniForum '96 (Feb. 14-16 at San Francisco.) The track is chaired by Tsvi Gal, chief technology officer for Bank of America of San Francisco. Speaking of advanced technology, Gal says, "In order to succeed, we need to look forward, but we need to do it in a way that relevant and practical to the business world today."

Accordingly, track sessions will examine the possible benefits of the latest technology with a sober assessment of exactly what's possible at this point in the technologies' development, including reports from early adopters and developers. Gal concedes that in the past a gap has often existed between the ideas proposed by advanced technology groups and the business world. "Our goal is to join the two areas, so people can see both what's coming down the road and what's already being used successfully."

Better Communications

One hot new area of IT is computer/telephone integration (CTI). The CTI session will examine how computers and telephones are being integrated for customer help lines, reservations, sales support, marketing, and sales analysis. Discuseutgssions will cover areas such managing inward and outward calls, automatic routing, and the automatic introduction of enterprise-wide customer profiles. Microsoft's telephony application program interface (TAPI), Novell's telephony services API (TSAPI), the Versit API, and IBM CallPath will be examined via an installed example of a modern call center.

PC video conferencing and application sharing across remote sites will be analyzed, including implementation strategies. Voice recognition and activation will also be discussed. A session will examine how current technology can enable unique voice identification as well as hardware and software activation.

Another session will discuss the new paradigm in enterprise networking, as boundaries between local- and wide-area networking are slowly erased. Panelists will talk about both the promise of end-to-end bandwidth on demand and the unique challenges of managing a mega-network.

Workflow and document management technologies will be examined in detail, including their origins in imaging and document filing, their current impact, and their future directions.

Leading-Edge Development

Object technology is one of the most important technologies in today's market. The business objects session will argue that too much attention has been placed on front-end GUIs. The session will describe how to design business objects, how to support their life cycle, and how to avoid getting stuck with unwanted object-based legacy systems.

AI, data mining, and multidimensional analysis with be examined in a session on the latest data warehousing. Topics will include the different models for data warehousing technologies, their optimum usage, and how these technologies can best be implemented.

Symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) and massively parallel processing (MPP) will be feature in a session on midrange and large-scale environments. The session will examine whether SMP can be scaled up, whether MPP can replace the mainframe, when a company should choose one technology over the other, and which is better for what tasks.

As the processor market consolidates, new strategies and choices are emerging. How to navigate this new market will be discussed in a session that examines strategies for vendors, ISVs, and customer options, both now and in the near future.

Applications are becoming more than repositories of information; they are becoming more like dynamic models of actual businesses. A far-ranging session will examine future applications and the tools that will be required to develop them.

As Gal puts it, "The companies that are making a difference are the ones with the right technology at the right time and at the right cost." This year's Applied Advanced Technologies track will help IT professionals tackle this complex goal.