This year, Catalyst will focus on eight core technologies transforming enterprise IT:

- Enterprise Ready Clouds: Realistic Strategies

- Social Software in the Enterprise

- SOA: Next Generation Application Architecture

- Collaborate or Perish: The Business Value of Relationships

- Virtualisation: Transforming IT Infrastructure

- Leveraging Information to Gain Insight

- New Identity Architecture: Getting There from Here

- Networks in Motion

"Catalyst has always been the place to go for practical knowledge, things that you can act on in your IT organization. Given the 'new normal' last year's economic crisis created, that pragmatic view is more important than ever. While it appears the recovery is underway, uncertainty persists and it's unlikely that IT budgets will return to pre-crisis levels in 2010. So we've focused the Catalyst agenda on what you need to know in order to make the right IT decisions, plan well, spend efficiently, and execute," said Burton Group CEO and Research Chair Jamie Lewis.

Registration, conference details:

http://catalyst.burtongroup.com/EU

((Comments on this story may be sent to newsdesk@closeupmedia.com))

This year, Catalyst will focus on eight core technologies transforming enterprise IT:

-- Enterprise Ready Clouds: Realistic Strategies

-- Social Software in the Enterprise

-- SOA: Next Generation Application Architecture

-- Collaborate or Perish: The Business Value of Relationships

-- Virtualisation: Transforming IT Infrastructure

-- Leveraging Information to Gain Insight

-- New Identity Architecture: Getting There from Here

-- Networks in Motion

"Catalyst has always been the place to go for practical knowledge, things that you can act on in your IT organization. Given the 'new normal' last year's economic crisis created, that pragmatic view is more important than ever. While it appears the recovery is underway, uncertainty persists and it's unlikely that IT budgets will return to pre-crisis levels in 2010. So we've focused the Catalyst agenda on what you need to know in order to make the right IT decisions, plan well, spend efficiently, and execute," said Burton Group CEO and Research Chair Jamie Lewis.

Registration, conference details, and speaker line-ups for Burton Group's Catalyst Conference are viewable at http://catalyst.burtongroup.com/EU.

To be a presenter at Burton Group's Catalyst Conference, submit a presentation abstract before 21 December 2009.

Members of the media may register for Burton Group's Catalyst Conference by contact Collin Searle at csearle@burtongroup.com.

About Burton Group

Burton Group (www.burtongroup.com) is an IT research and advisory services firm that helps technologists make smart enterprise architecture decisions. Burton Group provides in-depth, IT research and advisory services to executives and technologists at Global 2000 organizations. Focused on strategic business technologies and the unique needs of enterprise organizations, Burton Group provides clients company-wide access to its world-renowned analysts and a suite of powerful, intuitive research and decision support tools unmatched in the industry.

SOURCE: Burton Group

Burton Group 
Collin Searle, 801-304-8102 
PR Manager 
csearle@burtongroup.com

In the report "Market InSight: Productivity Suites 2009," Burton Group analyst Guy Creese notes, "This is not the productivity suite market of four years ago, and enterprises should make sure they know their options. Otherwise, they may be squandering their money, their productivity, or both."

The productivity suite market will continue to evolve, with changes occurring on four fronts: lower and value-based pricing, simpler licensing, a combination of SaaS and software delivery models, and the addition of document sharing and collaboration features. These changes are bringing new players to the marketplace, the company noted in a release.

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Externalization, Consumerization and Globalization - Externalization plays a role in IT economics, prompting value assessments of what capabilities should be treated as commodity. Consumerization reflects the desire for individual choice of devices and applications for maximum personal productivity. Democratization is evident in the rise and importance of social networks within and outside the modern enterprise. Ultimately, these elements converge to reshape the perception of enterprise IT and the traditional career path of the IT professional.

Cloud Computing - Over the next several years, enterprise demand will lead to maturity in cloud computing solutions, especially with respect to virtualization techniques, risk management and pricing models. Cloud computing offers some attractive benefits, but also carries some significant risks. The key to cloud computing is comprehension: Knowing what the cloud is, strengths, weaknesses, risks, and usage and pricing models is important for IT organizations that are looking to use the cloud to create a competitive advantage.

Data Center Transformation - 2010 marks the start of data center transformation by virtualizing many aspects of the data center and establishing a hybrid of internal and external IT providers. The data center exposes new methods and external offerings that give IT organizations a way to provide the right level business IT services from external specialized IT service providers, including private and public cloud providers.

Social Computing - Adoption of social computing is accelerating in organizations worldwide. As social computing moves from niche to mainstream, enterprises are focusing on empowering worker interactions through social networking and are reporting real value. Enterprises must also plan for these factors shaping social computing in 2010 and beyond: business and cultural drivers, increasing risk and vendor strategies.

Wireless Everything - With the explosive growth and availability of wireless networking products and services, substantial changes lay ahead for enterprise networks. Greater use of wireless mobile devices owned by employees is causing IT to rethink standard policies of issuing smartphones and even laptop computers to everyone. Employees are increasingly using their own wireless mobile devices, and enterprises must consider mobility as a strategic initiative rather than tactical capability.

Burton Group is an IT research and advisory services firm that helps technologists make smart enterprise architecture decisions. Burton Group provides IT research and advisory services to executives and technologists at Global 2000 organizations.

((Comments on this story may be sent to newsdesk@closeupmedia.com))