[sf-lug] PenLUG this week - "Boosting Linux Adoption through Better Manageability" by Laurent Gharda

[Bill Ward]

PenLUG (Peninsula Linux Users' Group) is having a meeting the day
after tomorrow!  You are invited.  RSVP is not required, but so we can
get an idea of how many people to expect please send mail to
rsvp at penlug.org to let us know if you are planning to attend.  For
full details about the group, as well as directions to the meeting,
visit www.penlug.org.

Free pizza, hors d'ouvres and soft drinks, courtesy of Open Country,
will be provided.  Free review copies of books from O'Reilly,
Prentice-Hall, APress, and/or other publishers, will be given out as
door prizes.  Be on time for the eary bird drawing.

NOTE: Due to the holidays, our meetings in November and December will
be on the 2nd Thursday instead of the 4th.  So our next meeting after
this will be Thursday, November 9.

Date: Thursday, October 26th, 2006
Time: meeting 7:00 - 9:00 PM, social/networking until 10 PM
Location: Twin Pines Park, 1225 Ralston Ave, Belmont, CA 94002
Speaker: Laurent Gharda
Topic: Boosting Linux Adoption through Better Manageability

Laurent will discuss how systems management is helping accelerate the
adoption of Linux in large environments, both domestically and
internationally. Included in the presentation will be an overview of
basic concepts in managing large numbers of remote systems, reasons
why some companies use systems management tools and others don't,
emerging business models for Linux services (e.g., Managed Service
Providers, inter-company and entrepreneurial collaboration), cultural
and maturity differences between the US and emerging geographies and
their impact on the growth rate of Linux.

As COO of Open Country, Laurent oversees engineering, marketing,
professional services, human resources and operations. Prior to
joining Open Country, Laurent served as COO of eCode, VP of marketing
of Phoenix Technologies, VP of marketing of Award Software, President
and founder of QualSoft, VP of Sales of Veritas Software and spent ten
successful years at Hewlett-Packard in a variety of senior business
development and marketing positions. Laurent earned a B.A. in Computer
Science from the University of California at Berkeley and a French
National Baccalaureate in philosophy and modern languages. Laurent is
the sole inventor of US Patent 6,009,520 and co-inventor of US Patents
6,560,702 and 6,564,318 addressing the manageability of application
software, system software and enabling firmware in computer systems
and embedded devices. He serves on the board of directors of
CodeWeavers.

Laurent was recently featured in the October 2006 OSDL newsletter.