HP tackles a variety of current IT challenges and advances in free three-day 'virtual conference'

Given the current economic downturn and tightening budgets, frugal is good and free is better. Hewlett-Packard (HP) is addressing the new IT value era with a series of complimentary international virtual events that will give IT professionals online access to briefings on business and technology trends from HP executives and outside experts.

Next week, June 8-10, HP will kick off the series with the HP Solutions Virtual Event for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). The three-day session will feature 30 breakout sessions, seminars, presentations and demo theater presentations. [Disclosure: HP is a sponsor of BriefingsDirect podcasts.]

Registration for the even is free and, because it's presented entirely online, there are no travel expenses or out-of-office time involved. Also, the full conference will be on replay until September. Future virtual events will be offered for Asia Pacific and Japan, June 16-18, and the Americas, July 28-30.

Next week's breakouts will include four main IT themes -- Data Center Transformation, Service Management, Information Management, and Applications and SOA Transformation -- as well as two leadership themes -- green IT and cloud computing. The virtual presentation will also include chat sessions with the many prominent speakers.

Among the topics to be covered are such current concerns as:

• Data center initiatives
  
  
• Rethinking virtualization
  
  
• IT energy efficiency
  
  
• The new era in service management
  
  
• ITIL v3
  
  
• Surviving in a world of hyper disruption
  
  
• Cloud and your business technology ecosystem
  
  
• Platforms for tomorrow's business technology

The full list of sessions (posted in Central European Time) is available on the virtual event Web site. Participants are free to attend for one session, one day, or the entire three-day event. These presentations and knowledge resources are not just for HP users, they make sense for the vast HP partner community and full ecology of related providers.

The speakers include a who's who of HP technology thought leaders, including many who are familiar to BriefingsDirect readers and listeners. These include John Bennett, Bob Meyer, Rebecca Lawson, Russ Daniels, Lance Knowlton, and Paul Evans, all of whom have appeared in BriefingsDirect podcasts.

For those interested, HP is providing an online demo that can be accessed prior to the event. The demo is available at: http://tsgdemo.veplatform.com/uc/registration-short-form.php

Registration for the event itself is at : http://hpsolutionsforneweconomyvirtualevent.veplatform.com/?mcc=EMEA.