SPTechCon: The new SharePoint conference from BZ Media

I’m very excited to announce BZ Media’s newest event, SPTechCon: The SharePoint Technology Conference. It’ll be held here in the Bay Area next January. Here’s the official press release, which hits tomorrow. You’re reading it here first!

The Call for Speakers for SPTechCon is open through August 15.

Huntington, N.Y., August 8, 2008 — BZ Media LLC today announced SPTechCon™: The SharePoint Technology Conference, an exciting new event for IT professionals, business leaders and software developers whose organizations use Microsoft Office SharePoint Products and Technologies.

SPTechCon will be held January 27-29, 2009, at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport. The three-day conference will offer dozens of technical classes and workshops for IT professionals, systems administration managers, line-of-business managers, business analysts and software developers.

BZ Media is the publisher of Systems Management News, the authoritative source for IT professionals and systems administrators, and SD Times, the newspaper of record for software development managers. BZ Media also produces the Software Test & Performance Conference and FutureTest events.

The first day at SPTechCon is filled with intensive half-day workshops, while the next two days contain several keynote addresses and dozens of concurrent classes. All classes are focused on maximizing the benefits of using Office SharePoint Server 2007, which is a Microsoft technology that provides a single, integrated platform where employees can efficiently collaborate with team members, find organizational resources, search for experts and corporate information, manage content and workflow, and leverage business insight to make better-informed decisions.

Many classes at SPTechCon also cover complementary Microsoft technologies, including Microsoft Windows Server, the Microsoft Office System, and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. The conference, expected to attract more than 500 paid attendees, will have a trade-show floor where exhibitors and sponsors can demonstrate compelling third-party applications, add-ons, plug-ins, tools and services built for Office SharePoint Products and Technologies.

Ted Bahr, President of BZ Media, said, “SharePoint is the platform of the future. Increasingly, enterprises are finding that SharePoint goes beyond solving their internal collaborative challenges. Companies are expanding how they use SharePoint, integrating it into their public-facing Web sites, and their Service-Oriented Architecture. We’ve heard from the readers of Systems Management News and SD Times that they use SharePoint, and they need technical training on how to use it more effectively and extend it throughout their organizations. We’re proud to offer SPTechCon to serve this pressing educational need.”

Tom Rizzo, Director of SharePoint at Microsoft, said, “The phenomenal uptake of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server is transforming organizations of all sizes, all industries and all geographies. Business leaders are envisioning new uses of SharePoint, and IT professionals and developers are gearing up to implement new applications as well as integrate SharePoint to other enterprise software. This is creating significant demand for training and education. We’re delighted BZ Media is introducing this new SharePoint technical conference.”