INDUSTRY

Technology industry leaders who are gathered this week at VORTEX 2004 are discussing the future of the $1 trillion information technology market, including how the re-election of President Bush or election of Senator Kerry will affect the technology industry. "The VORTEX audience strongly felt that neither candidate has adequately articulated positions on the most significant issues of interest to the technology industry," said John Gallant, co-executive producer of VORTEX. "With the election only weeks away, both candidates need to address in the debates and on the campaign trail the issues of an industry that is responsible for millions of jobs and more than 10 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product." During the conference, Gallant moderated a panel and lead conference attendees in an open, "town hall" style forum on "Innovation, Politics and the Future of the American Technology Industry." Panelists included Jeffrey Blumenfeld, Partner, Antitrust & Intellectual Property, Crowell & Moring, LLP; Umang Gupta, CEO of Keynote Systems; Mitchell Kertzman, Partner, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners; Geoffrey Moore, co-executive producer of VORTEX and managing director of TCG Advisors LLC; and David Kirkpatrick, Senior Editor, Internet & Technology, Fortune Magazine. "VORTEX attendees generally agreed that globalization is inevitable and expressed a desire to take advantage of that trend in a positive way both for their businesses and for their global citizenship," said Gallant. "Of course, because we were talking about political topics, there was spirited debate on the 'how' part of the questions and the specific position of the candidates on the critical issues." Key points discussed included: * The need for government policy that further encourages broadband adoption to further develop next generation communications capabilities. * The inevitability of globalization and the desire to have a positive reputation for U.S. businesses so they can continue to have access to world markets. * The need to keep borders open to immigration, which has been the source of so much innovation throughout U.S. history. * The desire to provide educational opportunities for citizens and non-citizens because retaining U.S. technology leadership depends on an educated workforce. * The need for the United States to continue to adapt and innovate as businesses outsource some jobs or automate them through technology. * The hope that government will assist workers affected by outsourcing through retraining and economic education, rather than by restricting or penalizing companies that choose to deploy resources in the global market. VORTEX attendees, including CIOs, IT vendors, venture capitalists, and industry and financial analysts, have heard about the future of enterprise computing from leading vendors including Cisco, EMC, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Juniper Networks, Microsoft, MySQL AB, Oracle, SAP, Sun and more.