NAB, Optus, Fortescue talk cloud power

Valued readers, we’re just a few hours away from our first Executive Summit in Sydney, and I thought I would share a few more details about what to expect when we hit the Grand Hyatt in Melbourne on Monday, March 19.

The theme of the half-day event is “The power of network computing”. Once again, we’re offering free entry to qualified readers -- in this case, CIOs, IT managers, those in the telecommunications/utilities/media industries, and network engineers. You can read more about the topic here:
http://summit.itnews.com.au/melbourne

Today I’d like to introduce some of our speakers:

First, you may have seen a recent profile of Vito Forte, CIO at Fortescue Metals on iTnews. Vito sets the bar pretty high when it comes to no-holds-barred negotiations with vendors, and he’s also quite visionary when it comes to network computing. He has set up Fortescue Metals IT so he doesn’t have to concern himself with many of the mundane challenges that keep most CIOs up at night. He has invested, instead, in some projects that I’m very anxious to share with you. (Although I’ll have to keep it under wraps for a month yet!)

Another Australian company leading the innovation charge is NAB. Denis Curran, Head of Strategy & Innovation at National Australia Bank is one of the few Australians involved in a global effort to forge better standards among providers of cloud computing services. You can read my first chat with Denis when the Open Data Center Alliance first came about. He’ll be giving us an update at the iTnews Executive Summit. Any CIO or IT Manager considering pushing applications into the cloud should really hear what he has to say.

We can also announce that John Paitaridis, managing director of Optus Business will be making his first big public presentation since jumping across from his role at Telstra. John’s experience in network computing at Australia’s largest two telcos makes him an ideal speaker for the Summit.

We’ll be announcing one or two more speakers shortly, and yes, we’ll make sure we leave plenty of time for you to network with your peers over drinks.

Make sure you register nice and early to avoid disappointment.

Best regards,

Brett Winterford
iTnews Editor