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MCNC Grid Computing & Networking Services is an independent, non-profit, advanced information technology research and service center that develops, tests and deploys grid computing and advanced networking solutions. MCNC Chief Executive Officer David Rizzo and Wolfgang Gentzsch, managing director of MCNC Grid Computing & Networking Services, will join a panel discussion about grid computing at the 2004 FIRe conference in San Diego on May 24-27. Rizzo will outline and explain the business efficiencies and benefits to be gained through grid computing for researchers, businesses and consumers, and how the deployment of a statewide grid in North Carolina has become a catalyst for economic development in the state and region. Gentzsch will discuss a market and technology model of development for grid computing. MCNC believes that the future of grid computing will unfold in three waves of adoption. First, as academia has led the development of the Internet, the academic research community has driven the development of the first wave of grid computing over the past five years. Today, commercial interest in grid computing is a catalyst for the second wave of adoption that is centered on, and is delivering substantial benefits to, businesses and industry. On the horizon is the third wave of adoption that will deliver benefits to consumers and is predicted to be even more pervasive and significant than the Internet is today. The panel, "Grid Computing Update: The Next 3-5 Years," is hosted by John K. Thompson, president of Marketing Sciences. In addition to Rizzo and Gentzsch, participants include Alex Grossman, Worldwide Product Marketing of Apple, and Bob Thome, senior manager of grid computing at Oracle. The FIRe conference, a by-invitation-only event, is attended by top officers of technology-driven companies, investors and policy makers to predict and discuss the impact of future technologies. FIRe was created, and is hosted, by Mark Anderson. Anderson founded the Strategic News Service newsletter, the first subscription-based newsletter on the Internet read by technology industry leaders and investors worldwide and often cited as the most accurate predictive newsletter in computing and communications. Anderson writes the “Future in Review” technology column for Fortune magazine and regularly appears on CNN, National Public Radio, and Wall Street Review television shows and in articles in the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, and the New York Times. Grid computing is an emerging technology that represents a new way to conduct business and research over a network, providing users with unprecedented computing power, services and information no matter where the resources are located. Multiple computing platforms and data sources on the grid operate, and appear to a user, as a single computing system. Networked resources on the grid are shared for collaboration, efficiency and cost savings. MCNC helped create one of the nation’s first grid computing test beds in 2001, the North Carolina Bioinformatics Grid, and is currently developing one of the nation’s first statewide grid services networks in partnership with the University of North Carolina 16-campus system. The statewide grid will serve as a reference implementation for commercial use of grid computing within the enterprise and across organizational boundaries. Rizzo, who created MCNC’s grid computing vision and strategy, is a 13-year IBM veteran and successful entrepreneur. He has more than 20 years of technology leadership experience. In 1992, he left IBM to found Osprey Systems, an e-services and enterprise resource planning systems company. Under his leadership, Osprey Systems grew to 225 employees with $30 million in annual revenues as he led the company to a successful acquisition. He joined MCNC in 2002. Gentzsch leads MCNC’s grid strategy and technology development. Prior to joining MCNC in 2004, Gentzsch was senior director of grid computing for Sun Microsystems Inc. For more information about the Future in Review conference, visit http://www.futureinreview.com/. MCNC is a private, independent, non-profit corporation established in 1980 to advance technology-led economic development and job creation throughout North Carolina. Since 1985, MCNC Grid Computing & Networking Services has established a reputation for deploying emerging technologies on its North Carolina Research and Education Network and today is building one of the nation’s first statewide grid computing networks. The statewide network provides advanced computing and communications services, video services for distance learning, high-speed Internet access, and access to national research networks for more than 180 organizations, including public and private universities, other state and non-profit institutions, and commercial customers. MCNC Research & Development Institute develops new technologies through its own initiatives and as a research partner for businesses and the U.S. government, conducting advanced and applied research across a broad technology spectrum, including microsystems, flexible electronics, sensor development, signal electronics, wireless systems, microfabrication, high-speed secure networks and grid computing. MCNC Ventures provides early-stage funding and assistance to entrepreneurial start-up companies. The MCNC family of companies is located in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park. For more information, please visit www.mcnc.org.