Welcome to the Red Hat Summit

Greetings from sunny San Diego. Later today we kick off the third annual Red Hat Summit– three fun days and nights of dialog, collaboration and learning. I can’t wait.

Today we begin exploring seven exciting tracks including:

• What’s new
• ROI, TCO, SOA and other important acronyms
• Beyond the operating system
• Peer-to-peer perspectives
• What’s next
• In the news
• Decoding the code

We’ll begin this morning with keynotes by our own Matthew Szulik and Brian Stevens. We’ll end Friday with an awards ceremony recognizing the six winners of the Red Hat Innovation Awards crowning our first “Innovator of the Year.” In between we’ll present informative and insightful sessions led by some of the industry’s most recognizable leaders. We’ll hear from David Pakman, President and CEO of eMusic. Learn from Alan Dechert, Co-founder, CEO and President of the Open Voting Consortium. Be inspired by Derek Chan, Head of Digital Operations at Dreamworks Animation. We’ll also hear from Paul Cormier and AMD’s Henri Richard. And we’ll honor our Chairman’s Award Winners.

This year’s Summit is sold-out with more than 1,000 attendees including business executives, system administrators, educators, students, job hunters, open-source-enthusiasts and more. Beyond our visionary keynotes, the Summit also features hands-on labs and sessions covering topics from Red Hat Enterprise Linux to Intellectual Property.

We anticipate a lot of coverage from this year’s Summit. We’ve planned multiple press announcements and blogs in addition to all of the keynotes and breakouts. If you’re with us in San Diego, welcome– please make sure our guests have a great experience. If you’re joining us from home, stay tuned to hear more on our announcements and how it’s going.

Thank you to all the many Red Hat associates who’ve worked so hard to get us ready for another Summit– it’s an incredible endeavor. I’m proud of all of you. As I said earlier, I can’t wait.

Vote here for the Red Hat Innovator of the Year.