Features - Enterprise Data Insights:

END-USER REPRESENTATION AT SNW SPRING 2003 REMAINS ROBUST

IDG's Computerworld, in partnership with the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA), announced strong participation in Storage Networking World (SNW) Spring, one of the foremost educational forums for the storage industry.

With a comprehensive agenda featuring IT end-user and industry leader sessions and speakers, SNW Spring 2003 registered 1,071 storage buyers, integrators, press and analysts, as of April 15, 2003. This compares to 621 registrants in the same demographic present at SNW Spring 2002 in Palm Desert, Calif. Total registration for the event (as of April 15, 2003) was 1,784, excluding event production staff.

Key to this achievement is the 753 storage technology end-users in attendance, including decision-making systems and networking administrators, technical engineers, and enterprise CIOs. These results affirm SNW's dominant position as the world's leading storage networking event series as well as the continued vitality of the storage industry.

"SNW is a great event to both network and learn about the latest technology in storage," said Ulrich Seif, senior vice president and CIO, National Semiconductor. "Today's economy forces us to leverage our assets like storage even more, and SNW helps us to learn and share our experience with others."

According to an audience poll conducted onsite, 67% of respondents came to SNW to be educated, stay up to date and learn about successful deployments. In addition, a quarter of those surveyed attended the conference to investigate current products and learn what products fit their needs and budget. The audience poll also revealed that over 40% of respondents had more than 5,000 employees in their organizations, while 30% had IT budgets of greater than $100 million.

"The importance of storage solutions -- both hardware and software -- continues to grow within the technology marketplace and with IT professionals. SNW is an excellent opportunity for a storage technologist to see the latest advancements, to learn about future trends and to exchange ideas with some of the sector's top minds," said Yogesh Gupta, chief technology officer at Computer Associates. "CA, with its focus on cutting-edge, storage management solutions, is pleased to be a part of the conference."

Attendees participated in 87 educational sessions, including SNIA designed and delivered tutorials, expert panels and case studies from end-users -- such as keynote speaker and noted author Regis McKenna, Steve Romaine, Chief Architect at The Hartford, and David Chamberlain, vice president of Architecture and Capacity Planning at Providian Financial -- that outline strategies to maximize the value of storage investments in today's economic environment.

For more information about Storage Networking World or for a calendar of future events, please visit www.snwusa.com.

About the SNIA

The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) is a not-for-profit organization, made up of over 300 companies and individuals spanning virtually the entire storage industry. SNIA members share a common goal: to set the pace of the industry by ensuring that storage networks become efficient, complete, and trusted solutions across the IT community. To this end the SNIA is uniquely committed to delivering standards, education and services that will propel open storage networking solutions into the broader market. For information visit the SNIA Web site at www.snia.org.