Tuesday was a exciting day at ILTA 2009 with lots of great sessions and discussions throughout the day. About the only part of the day that wasn’t so great was the turkey bacon served at breakfast, which had the texture of construction paper and the flavor of it as well.
The morning saw a number of really good sessions, such as the session entitled “G100 Recap: Weathering the Storm and Cloud Computing.” A number of key points were raised, such as the acknowledgment that technology spending was sacrificed during the economic downturn during the past couple of years. The panelists believe that IT will actually help lead firms out of the recession and allow them to complete projects to help overall productivity. On the subject of cloud computing, it was said that most law firms will likely begin to get exposure through telephony systems where there is less of the privacy concerns of other cloud based applications.
If you’re interested in exploring cloud computing in greater detail, Kraft Kennedy’s John Tsiofas and Dave Carlson will be speaking on data center relocation and cloud computing at 11:00AM on Wednesday in the Maryland C ballroom.
Also in the morning was a great session called “From the Trenches: Office 2007 Deployment Lessons.” Here three different firms talked about their experiences, both good and bad, in upgrading to Office 2007. The general consensus from the panelists was that the ribbon bar, the biggest visual change in the Office 2007 suite, actually turned out to be an insignificant issue overall. The larger concerns were around application integration with document management systems and add-ins to Office applications that cause instability and performance issues. In fact, one panelist described the project as “The document management system project featuring Office 2007,” highlighting the importance of the integration between Office 2007 and the DMS.
Office 2010 may have some of the same challenges. Feel free to stop by Kraft Kennedy’s booth (721/723) to get a first hand look at Office 2010 running in our VDI environment. The VDI desktops also feature Windows 7 and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2, so stop by and check them out!
VDI, or virtual desktop infrastructure, seems to be a hot topic at the conference this year. Firms are starting to recognize that there are many benefits that can come with implementing a VDI solution, both in terms of financial savings as well as ease of administration and management. We’ve spoken with many firms at the conference already this year that are starting to look at VDI as an alternative to traditional desktop deployment strategies. We think the release of Windows 7 is also helping to drive VDI interest and adoption, as is the acceptance of virtualization technology in general.
With cost savings in mind, firms are also talking about how to contain costs or continue to reduce them. Technologies like virtualization are helping to reduce costs as firms work to extend their hardware investments. Developing a sound technology strategy has also been a reoccurring topic throughout the day as firms are preparing for what is coming next and want to ensure their strategy makes good business sense.
Finally, the day ended with the “Tut After Dark” party and casino night and everyone had a great time. Even the party is a great place to learn new things, such as this blogger learning just how quickly you can lose $25,000 at the high rollers craps table. But hey, it sure was a fun four minutes of my life!