HP Discover is fast approaching and will be held in Sin City for the second year. For an HP customer, like myself, this event is high on my list of priorities to attend. And, I have an offer for my readers – $300 off the registration fee if you book HP Discover using this link and the promo code “BLOG”.
I’m all set to attend thanks to a gracious invitation from HP, but again this year, I’ll be joined by two co-workers on-site for the event. There are lots of other conferences out there, so why does my employer choose to send 3 people to HP Discover? In short – it really is the best event of the year for HP customers and partners to see HP’s roadmap for enterprise, to get access to some of HP’s brightest and best resources on the showroom floor, and to hear presentations from the engineers and technical staff of HP for many of the products we use.
You see, my employer has been an HP customer for many years and most of our datacenter solutions are from the HP portfolio. And given the amount of HP gear we run, there is a variety of topics that we need to stay informed with. HP Discover presents the unique opportunity to see where our product lines are going and what is happening in development for new versions of the software and firmware for our products.
Several years ago, HP held multiple different conferences with more focused topics during the year. Last year, they chose to unify under a single conference and having been there for the first year, it was very successful. As HP and other vendors have driven convergence of solutions and as the cloud has unified many product lines into single solutions, it makes sense to bring together the software, storage and server folks under a single event.
Some highlights to look forward to for 2012:
- Kunal Nayyar (Raj Koothrappali from The Big Bang Theory on CBS) will be the emcee for the keynotes and I have a feeling this will go over really well with the crowd!
- Hear from CEO Meg Whitman about the direction and what’s to come for HP as a company.
- Listen to a keynote from Dreamworks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg about how Dreamworks uses HP solutions for animation AND get a special advanced viewing of Madagascar 3
- Visit the Discover Zone where HP will be showcasing all their products as well as from partners who are showcasing their best solutions. Gain awareness of new products or changes to existing products that could ease pain points in your enterprise
- Hear from key executives Dave Donatelli, Todd Bradley, Bill Veghte, John Visentin with keynotes about what’s coming from Enterprise System, Personal Systems & Printing, HP Software and Enterprise Services respectively.
- A closing concert for conference attendees featuring Sheryl Crow and Don Henley from the Eagles.
Disclaimer: This post is part of a contest for bloggers to raise awareness of the HP Discover conference. HP is sponsoring the contest and will award some prizes for the blogger who sends the most registrations and for some additional bloggers chosen randomly. Should I win one of those prizes, I’ll be giving it away to a lucky reader. That all said, the post is my views an opinions of the HP Discover conference and the value that it brings to customers who attend.
