SAN FRANCISCO, June 30 /PRNewswire/ -- The Open Group, a vendor- and technology-neutral consortium focused on open standards and global interoperability within and between enterprises, today announced its line-up of keynote speakers for the 19th Enterprise Architecture Practitioners Conference. Brian Wilczynski, chief of staff architecture directorate, assistant secretary of defense (Networks & Information Integration) and Department of Defense CIO, will deliver one of the keynote speeches at the conference, to be held July 21-23, 2008 at the InterContinental Hotel in Chicago, Illinois.

Additional keynote speakers for the conference will address both government enterprise architecture, as well as Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), security and business architectures. Included in the keynote speaking roster are: Wing Commander Shaun Harvey, RAF exchange officer, SAF/XCPA; Malcolm Lowe, head of architecture, UK Government Department for Work and Pensions; Marc Otherson, senior analyst, Forrester Research; John McLaughlin, executive IT architect, IBM; Dan Blum, senior vice president principal analyst, Security and Risk Management Strategies, Burton Group; David Rice, author of Geekonomics: The Real Price of Insecure Software; and Adriam Seccombe, chief information security office and senior enterprise information architect, Eli Lilly & Co. Ltd. The conference will also include additional parallel speaking tracks to address the architecture profession, SOA, business architectures, architecting secure information delivery and tools for TOGAF(TM).

In addition to the regular speaking tracks, industry analyst Dana Gardner of the Interarbor Group will be moderating a panel discussion on Government SOA, featuring other well-known industry analysts and experts Eric Knorr, editor in chief of InfoWorld magazine; Joe McKendrick, author, consultant and syndicated blogger for outlets such as ZDNet; Tony Baer, SOA analyst at Ovum; and Andras Szakal, chief architect IBM Federal Software Group. This panel will discuss and dissect the latest enterprise architecture trends, challenges and opportunities facing local, state, and national government agencies and departments.

The Open Group's Enterprise Architecture Practitioners Conferences, now in their fifth year, are globally recognized events created by and for enterprise architecture practitioners to examine a wide variety of topics currently affecting the profession. The Chicago event will focus on the key issues needed to build and maintain successful government enterprise architectures across disparate government agencies and departments.

Registration, Sponsorship and Exhibit Opportunities

Registration is open to both members and non-members of The Open Group. For more information, or to register for the conference in Chicago please visit: http://www.opengroup.org/events/q308/index.htm. Registration is free for members of the press and industry analysts.

The Open Group also offers various sponsorship and exhibit opportunities. For more information, please visit: http://www.opengroup.org/events/q308/sponsor-exhibit.htm.

About The Open Group

The Open Group is a vendor-neutral and technology-neutral consortium, which drives the creation of Boundaryless Information Flow(TM) that will enable access to integrated information within and between enterprises based on open standards and global interoperability. The Open Group works with customers, suppliers, consortia and other standard bodies. Its role is to capture, understand and address current and emerging requirements, establish policies and share best practices; to facilitate interoperability, develop consensus, and evolve and integrate specifications and open source technologies; to offer a comprehensive set of services to enhance the operational efficiency of consortia; and to operate the industry's premier certification service. Further information on The Open Group can be found at http://www.opengroup.org/.

CONTACT: Bill Bourdon of The Bateman Group, +1-415-602-1491,
opengroup@bateman-group.com, for The Open Group

Web site: http://www.opengroup.org/