The voting is now open for this years Citrix Innovation Award -

The Citrix Innovation Award is for Citrix customers who innovate in utilizing technology to make a significant impact on their business. Ultimately, information technology is about delivering applications to end users so they can perform business transactions. These three nominees have innovated in their use of Citrix technology to cut costs, reduce time to revenue for projects, and to mitigate risk.

Here is the video from Betchel Corporation -

Next up is Cocamar Cooperativa Agroindustrial-

And finally the video for Mutual of Omaha (yes, the Wild Kingdom guys for those who remember that show) -

The judges for this years Citrix Innovation Award are listed below -

How to Vote
You can vote now for the Citrix Innovation award online at http://www.citrix.com/innovationaward. The winner will be named during the keynote session at Citrix Synergy 2008 on Wednesday, May 21st. Citrix Synergy will be held on May 20th to May 23rd at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston.

If you have not yet registered for Citrix Synergy, you can click here to to complete your registration. I look forward to seeing you at Synergy..

At Synergy, Citrix Education will host a technical breakout session, "The IT Talent You Need Today and Tomorrow," which explores different job roles/activities related to application delivery, and examines the future of IT professionals.

At this session, attendees will learn:

• Methods for training and developing individuals to be application delivery-fluent
• How Citrix is working to fulfill market demand for qualified application delivery IT professionals
• About customers that are developing and transforming their staff and IT organization to support application delivery

 The best part is, breakout session attendees will be entered to win one FREE seat in XenServer course CTX-2400BW Citrix XenServer Enterprise Edition 4.1: Administration.

"The IT Talent You Need Today and Tomorrow" (session ID 110) breakout session will be held on May 20th at 3:30pm. For more info, Click here to preview the Synergy technical breakout session list and access session 110. 

In my previous post on Geek Speak Bar Camp (May 21st at Citrix Synergy), we had fourteen of the twenty speaking slots filled. As of now, all twenty speaking slots for the first ever Geek Speak BarCamp are filled. (Read background on Geek Speak BarCamp here, here and here).

 
The line up now includes three Citrix Technology Specialists, four consultants, two Escalation Tech Support Engineers, a VDI Specialist from VMWare, four Product Managers, an HP Print Driver Developer and a Senior Architect from a large healthcare company.

I am looking forward to flying to Houston and getting this event started. I think that after seeing this line up and the list of technical sessions in the other tracks, I think you will agree with Shawn Bass when he wrote -

I am still working on juggling the time schedule to meet everyones equipment requirements and time constraints. I expect to finalize by Monday or Tuesday.

If you have not yet registered for Citrix Synergy, you can click here to to complete your registration. I look forward to seeing you at Synergy and the Geek Speak BarCamp.

One of the many great speakers at Geek Speak Live! (see James Rabey's post for the lineup) is Russ Daniels, HP CTO for Cloud Services Strategy. Russ Daniels was previously the CTO for HP Software, before moving into this new role last year.

In 2006, Infoworld named Russ Daniels a part of its Infoworld CTO 25.

According to his bio, "Daniels speaks widely at conferences and works closely with key HP partners and its largest and most demanding enterprise customers. Daniels has more than 25 years of industry experience specializing in software architecture, enterprise management, and software development methodologies. Prior to joining HP, he spent 15 years at Apple Computer. He has a bachelor's degree from Ohio University."

Daniels is a highly sought after speaker at technology conferences. Russ Daniels participated in a "fireside chat" at Mobile 2.0 in San Francisco last year. You can read the transcript here. He also participated in MIT's CIO Symposium in 2006 in a discussion of Software as a service. You can listen to a podcast of this discussion here

If you have not yet registered for Citrix Synergy, you can click here to to complete your registration. I look forward to seeing you at Synergy and Geek Speak Live!.

Interested in helping to define future Citrix training and certification programs? If so, we have a great opportunity for you to provide input.

The Citrix Education team will be conducting a series of focus groups during the Citrix Synergy conference, to be held Tuesday, May 20th, Wednesday, May 21st and Thursday, May 22nd at 1PM.  Join your peers at one of these dynamic sessions depending on your role:

• If you make decisions regarding training and certification for your staff join us on Tuesday from 1-2:30
• If you have taken official Citrix Education training courses and/or are Citrix certified join us on Wednesday from 1-2:30
• If you have never taken any Citrix training join us on Thursday from 1-2

All three sessions will take place in the George R. Brown Convention Center with specific location information to follow. PLEASE NOTE: Each participant who qualifies and participates will receive a $50 honorarium.

If you are interested in attending one of these sessions, please contact Dana Robinson at drobinson@icrsurvey.com or by phone (484-840-4333) by end of day Friday, May 16^th. 

Thanks for your interest!

We now have fourteen of the twenty sessions at the Geek Speak BarCamp filled (read background on Geek Speak BarCamp here, here and here).

I have put together a tentative schedule of the sessions we have to date. The sessions, title, and schedule could still change, but the overall schedule is coming together.

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We are still working to fill the final six slots. Please submit your session topic now. You can use the comments in this thread, or you can email me at citrixblogger @citrix.com . You can also IM questions to citrixblogger on MSN, Yahoo and Google Talk.

If you have not yet registered for Synergy, you can click here to to complete your registration. I look forward to seeing you at Synergy and the Geek Speak BarCamp.

I am sure you all must have heard about the GeekSpeak Live event during synergy. Barry Flanagan and I are also doing GeekSpeak BarCamp on Wednesday May, 21st.

The goal for this is to give the technical audience at Synergy a chance to get together to discuss technical content most interests you. No marketing slides, no features and benefits, just hard core technical discussions about any IT topic that interests you and the attendees. You can run a white board discussion, present a technical presentation on your latest project, or show a demo of your newest creation with an SDK. Anyone can sign up for a slot. You may be an IT admin, a technology consultant, a Citrix technical employee, a technical employee of a Citrix partner (or competitor), or a student who loves technology and wants to share it.

We have 12 slots filled up so far. Read Barry's Blogs for more info here and here.

If you want to sign up then please comment on my blog or go directly to the GeekSpeak BarCamp page or comment on this blog.

Are you planning to attend the GeekSpeak Live and the GeekSpeak BarCamp?	Choose
Won't miss it for anything. Looking forward to meet all the geeks
No. I will miss all the fun

We now have twelve of the twenty sessions at the Geek Speak BarCamp filled (read background on Geek Speak BarCamp here, here and here).

1. Virtualization Defined - Joe Shonk

2. The Stress of IT - Jim Kenzig

3. Virtualization Oriented Architecture over VDI - Jaymes Davis

4. What is High Availability - Michael Bilancieri

5. Ultra Mobile Gadget Tech - Adam Marano

6. HP Print Drivers in a Citrix Environment - Robert Tuft

7. Citrix WorkFlow Studio Examples - Vishal Ganeriwala

8. Fifteen Years with Citrix - Steve Greenberg

9. Web Interface Internals - Jason Conger

10. Provisioning Best Practices - Pete Downing

11. Performance Matters on the Edge - Tim Mackey

12. Server Virtualization Best Practices - Peter Blum

Geek Speak BarCamp has twelve tech sessions so far to go along with the nine industry experts speaking at GeekSpeak Live. There is also the long list of technical sessions in the iForum and Application Delivery tracks.

We are still working to fill the final eight slots. Please submit your session topic now. You can use the comments in this thread, or you can email me at citrixblogger @citrix.com . You can also IM questions to citrixblogger on MSN, Yahoo and Google Talk.

If you have not yet registered for Synergy, you can click here to to complete your registration. I look forward to seeing you at Synergy and the Geek Speak BarCamp.

We are looking to better prepare Labs and Sessions during this year's PubForum 2008. Alex Danilchev has been kind enough to setup a quick survey to help with this, so if you are attending, please go ahead fill out the survey as we need your participation.

See you in Dublin!

Continue to the Survey: PubForum Lab Survey

I have written previously on the great lineup keynote speakers for Synergy that includes best selling technology author Nicholas Carr, the versatile comedian Dana Carvey and the Senior Vice President from Microsoft Bob Muglia, along with an impressive line up of tech industry execs.

There is one keynote speaker I forgot to mention - Mark Templeton. Apparently he is the CEO of some software company .

Here is an video invite to Citrix Synergy from Mark Templeton, CEO of Citrix.

You can click here to register for Citrix Synergy.

Desktop Virtualization and Citrix XenDesktop!

Time to rethink traditional desktop deployment. It's too expensive and kills productivity. Is desktop virtualization the answer? It's a hot topic, and we're going to look at it from every angle at Synergy.

Explode desktop virtualization myths
You've done the research, and you're convinced that desktop virtualization will:
 
• Solve your lifecycle management issues
• Reduce your storage requirements
• Improve the end user experience
• Enable your company's green computing initiatives
 

You'll be surprised at what you don't know about desktop virtualization. Learn more about it at Synergy - and find out why it may be just a first step.

XenDesktop: Make it all work together without losing your mind
IT moves at warp speed. You've got to keep your options open to ensure the best options for your business - with no vendor lock-in - as technologies and standards evolve. Come to Synergy and explore the open architecture of the all-new Citrix XenDesktop, which definitely plays well with others and provides out-of-the box integration. Stop by the Tech Lab in the Expo Hall, and watch how it works: XenDesktop dynamically assembles a unique desktop from pristine components for each user, every time they log on.

Whether you're tasked with evaluating the technology, deploying a solution - or explaining its benefits to the board - you'll find sessions at Synergy covering all the cutting edge content on desktop virtualization.

Continue on to Citrix Synergy

Hot Topics and Solutions in Application Delivery!

This track will bring together both hot topics and realistic approaches for making everything from the datacenter to the desktop work in the real world.

What in the World... Is a Dynamic Datacenter?
Server Virtualization - A "Natural" For Natural Disasters (and other DR Scenarios)
Why You Should Care...About Unified Communications
Critical Care: Optimizing and Protecting Web 2.0 Applications
Rethinking the Datacenter
Service-oriented Architecture: Positive or Negative for Application Delivery?
"Portable Personality": Making Users Device-Independent
Transformation with Virtualization: New Approaches to Data Security
Fighting New Threats, Enabling New Business
The IT Talent You Need Today and Tomorrow
The Hot Seat: Three Views of Desktop Virtualization
End-to-End Virtualization: Risks and Rewards
Insights along the Path to the "Xen" Garden
The Leading Edge: Virtual Appliances

Continue on to Citrix Synergy

The Latest on Citrix Products from A to Xen!

Sessions in this track will give attendees the latest scoop on Citrix products - from Access Gateway to XenServer.

Forgive us for Bragging... About the Best Windows App Delivery Solution Ever!
Happy End Users? With XenApp, It's No Longer an Oxymoron
Going the Distance: 50x Faster App Delivery to Branches with WANScaler
Branch Offices Get Up to Speed with XenApp
Top 10 Tips for Providing the Best Application Experience with EdgeSight
Testing 1-2-3, Testing 1-2-3: Automated Load and Regression Testing for XenApp
Go with the Flow: Using Workflow Studio to Deliver a Dynamic Datacenter
NetScaler: It's Not Just for Load Balancing Any More
Shhh! There's a Secret Weapon against Web Application Attacks
Make App Delivery Your Policy with AppExpert
Balancing Act: Achieve High Server Availability with NetScaler
Know All, See All with EdgeSight for NetScaler
Shift into High Gear with NetScaler Acceleration for Web Apps
XenApp and XenServer - Better Together
Easy as 1-2-3: Integrating Apps and Communications with EasyCall
Attention Techies! Learn to Configure New Access Gateway, Enterprise
Better than Lunesta: Implement Access Gateway and Stop Losing Sleep over Access Security
Your Technical Blueprint for the Dynamic Datacenter
Server Workload Streaming - The Next Best Thing to Cloning
Customers Are Talking...About Provisioning Server for Datacenters
Check Out the New Kid on the Block -- Citrix XenDesktop
App Virtualization with Isolation and Streaming - the Fastest Route from Server to Client
Managing User Profiles for Desktop and Application Delivery
Design Considerations for XenApp Implementations
Taming the Printing Beast with "Printing Virtualization"

Continue on to Citrix Synergy

Strategic Considerations for the Business IT Professional!

Sessions in this track will cover how application delivery and its underlying technologies - virtualization, application networking and optimization are transforming the IT industry and IT organizations. Topics in this track are intended for senior IT leaders.

Keeping Pace with Rapid Innovation- Best Practices for IT Leadership

IT organizations have historically struggled to keep pace with the speed that the business wants to, and increasingly, has to move. Led by IDC's Senior Vice President & Chief Analyst Frank Gens, this session will present recent research on topics critical to today's IT management leadership -- and discuss best practices with IT executives who are "keeping pace".

IT's "Invisible" Silver Bullet - Application Delivery Networks

If your network is not application fluent, you are wasting money, opening security holes and certainly not ready for the next wave of change in application architecture - Web 2.0. This session, led by Gartner Research Vice President, Joe Skorupa, will pull back the curtain on a proven, but often overlooked solution - Application Delivery Controllers - that could be your "silver bullet" in helping your business improve costs, security and responsiveness to change. This session will present recent research and discuss best practices with IT executives that have already discovered, and benefited from the "silver bullet".

End-to-End Virtualization - How Do We Get Real Value, Now?

How close are we to virtualization "nirvana", will it really change IT for the better, and deliver real value to the business? The pieces seem to be falling into place with virtualization occurring throughout the enterprise - server, storage, desktops, networks and applications. This session, led by Gartner Research Vice President Mark Margevicius, will present recent research and discuss best practices with industry leader CSC from their current practices in application, desktop and server virtualization.

Continue on to Citrix Synergy

Attend Citrix Synergy and complete the entry form found in your attendee bag (see image to the left) and drop it off at the Citrix Education booth during Exhibit Hall hours. Attendees may only enter the contest once and must be present during the drawing to win. The drawing will be held in the Exhibit Hall theatre on Thursday, May 22nd at 1:00pm.

Explore our Solutions

If your mission is a better return on your Citrix investment, take a step towards the solution with Citrix Education. Technical training and certification from Citrix Education enables you and your staff with best practices and in-depth product knowledge that is critical to keeping your Citrix environment running at peak performance.

Terms & Conditions

• Citrix employees, Citrix partners and Citrix vendors are not eligible to enter.
• Contestants must provide a valuable testimonial and answer the product/service related question in order to be eligible for the drawing.
• Testimonials become the property of Citrix. Contestants:
(a) assign Citrix all copyrights and moral rights in and to the testimonial arising under statute and common law, and all other derivative rights;
(b) grant Citrix permission to publish, copy and disseminate all or part of the testimonial;
(c) grant Citrix permission to use their name for advertising or promotional purposes all without any royalty, compensation or other consideration, except where prohibited by law.
• Contestants must be present to win. Registration is limited to one entry per person.
• Contestants must agree to and sign the terms and conditions of the drawing.
• Incomplete forms will not be accepted.
• Contestants shall be responsible for any taxes due from winning the trip
• Citrix Education shall not be responsible for any losses, or damages of any kind arising in connection with or as a result of the trip, or its acceptance.

Continue at Source: Citrix Training

At Citrix Synergy, you can take the latest Citrix Exams at our on-site testing center and get a second chance to pass - free!
If needed, you'll receive an exam retake voucher for the same exam, which can be redeemed at any Prometric testing center
worldwide.

Choose from the following list of Citrix Exams available at Synergy. Click on the exam number for detailed exam information, including related certifications and preparatory recommendations:

• A01 Citrix XenServer Enterprise Edition 4.0: Administration
• 256 Citrix Presentation Server 4.0: Administration
• 259 Citrix Presentation Server 4.5: Administration
• 264 Citrix Presentation Server 4.5: Support
• 306 Citrix Access Gateway 4.2 with Advanced Access Control: Administration
• 308 Citrix Access Gateway 4.5 Advanced Edition: Administration
• 309 Citrix Access Gateway 8.0 Enterprise Edition: Administration
• 731 Citrix NetScaler 8.0: Administration
• 900 Citrix Provisioning Server 4.5: Administration

Don't miss an opportunity to get Citrix Certified with the no-risk assurance of a free exam retake!
To reserve your spot for this special offer, pre-register to take an exam with us by May 16th, 2008.

Continue at Source: Citrix Training

Participate in a Citrix Hands On Technical Workshop (HOT) at Citrix Synergy and receive a coupon for 15% off of a Citrix Training Pass and you can get up to a savings of $750!

Citrix Training Pass (CTP)
The CTP program offers the flexibility to purchase the right combination of training to meet your business goals. Sold as a voucher, a CTP provides the freedom to take training courses at participating Citrix Authorized Learning Centers (CALCs) within a 12 month period.

The Citrix Training Pass is:

• Available for authorized Citrix courses
• Redeemable at Citrix Authorized Learning Centers (CALCs) in North America
• Valid for one year from the date of purchase
• Includes all necessary authorized e-learning and ILT courseware
• Offered as Instructor-led Training and Virtual Instructor-led Training

Buy Now, Learn Later
To redeem your discount once you have the coupon in-hand, please follow these simple steps before August 31st:

1. Go to www.findcitrixtraining.com
2. Select the class date, time and location most convenient for you and click the "pre-register" button
3. Enter the promo code (found on the bottom left of the coupon) in the "promo code" field and submit your completed form
4. A representative from Citrix Education will contact you within 24 hours to complete the purchase.

*Offer valid through August 31, 2008. Not valid with any other promotions, packages or discount offers. Limit one Savings Certificate per customer per order. Applies only to new registrations.

Continue at Source: Citrix Training

Drive greater IT operating efficiency through integrated end-to-end virtualization to reduce costs,
maximize system availability, and drive operational agility.

Join top virtualization executives as Citrix and Microsoft discuss:

• Virtualization industry trends and how Microsoft and Citrix are joined to provide customers with best-of-breed solutions
• Key solutions for application, server, and desktop virtualization
• Reducing IT costs by 40% with Virtualization

Date: May 15, 2008 at 4:00 PM EDT/ 1:00 PM PDT

Continue to Registration: Citrix and Microsoft and the Future of Virtualization

The lineup of technical session content as part of the Citrix Synergy conference in Houston is starting to come together. If you are a technical person looking to put together a business justification for your trip to Synergy, this post should help.

Below is the technical breakout session lineup for Synergy

On top of these 65 technical breakout sessions, there will be nine discussion sessions in GeekSpeak Live with session leaders including Citrix Technology Professionals like Doug Brown, Rick Dehlinger, Shawn Bass, and Jason Conger.
If that isn't enough, the Chief Software Architect from Citrix, Brad Petersen, popular virtualization blogger Tarry Singh, an HP CTO and a high level technical speaker from Intel will join us as well.

Pile on 20 more community led technical sessions as part of the GeekSpeak BarCamp(and you can still sign up to lead your own session at GeekSpeak BarCamp). That all adds up to 94 technical sessions at Synergy. This should go a long way towards helping you justify attending this year's event.

On top of all this technical content, there will be an IT 2.0 Business Symposium and multiple business sessions in the Application Delivery track. When combined with the industry heavyweight keynote speakers this should be the best Citrix conference yet.

You can click here to register for Citrix Synergy. I look forward to seeing you in Houston.

One of the new tracks at Citrix Synergy this year is Geek Speak. James Rabey blogged recently about the format of GeekSpeak Live at Synergy. A second part of the Geek Speak track is GeekSpeak BarCamp. I have blogged about this event at Synergy here and here.

This event is designed to allow any attendee to sign up to speak for 30 minutes on any technical topic. Geek Speak BarCamp will give the attendees at Citrix Synergy a new opportunity to contribute to the discussion and provide a much wider array of technical content. Pizza and drinks will be provided for those who attend. The Geek Speak Gadget Gear Lounge will be open during both Geek Speak Live! and the BarCamp as well.

This BarCamp event will follow immediately after Geek Speak Live on Wednesday, May 21st. We will have access to four sections of the Geek Speak room to host these sessions. Two of the rooms will have large LCD's screen (if you would like to show something from your laptop) and two of the rooms will be white board only. The only rules are no sales and marketing pitches or feature and benefits.

We are now taking submissions for topics. We have four speaking areas and five thirty minute blocks, for a total of twenty sessions. We have confirmed a few sessions speakers already, including Joe Shonk,Jim Kenzig and Jaymes Davis
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Please submit your session topic now. You can use the comments in this thread, or you can email me at citrixblogger @citrix.com . You can also IM questions to citrixblogger on MSN, Yahoo and Google Talk.

If you have not yet registered for Synergy, you can click here to to complete your registration. I look forward to seeing you at Synergy and the Geek Speak BarCamp.