Devoxx Antwerp

Arrived yesterday evening in Antwerp, check in, take a walk. The area in the neighborhood (south-side) wasn't too lively, hope that the downtown area provides more fun. What I've seen from downtown on other visits was actually quite amazing. Just coming in by train is an experience, waling up the stairs in that wonderfully architected train station.

Devoxx is great. Sold out with 3´500 attendees and a good line-up of partners it shows me that Java is not dead. I feel that I'm pretty much the oldest person here, close to double the age as the average attendee age. Having the conference hosted in a large movie theater is great for good audio and video all over the place.

The organizers have made a great effort in 'electrifying' the conference. Custom made electronic voting machines that go with your NFC arm band, stand-up terminals for the program (sponsored by Oracle as it looks like), TV-screens everywhere with the latest announcements, , movie evening with the new James Bond movie Skyfall. Looks like they have vast resources to put into lovely things.

Some things are too colorful and to fast for me. But I guess it's ok for the kids. Oh - and not to forget: The program is packed, and so are the rooms. Folks I talk to seem to think that the program is pretty good! They don't even mind the bad sandwiches.

So the concept works. It actually seems to work well enough that it got exported to France. And we'll also see a Devoxx UK next year, as I understand. Congratulations to Stephan Jansen and his team. What started as a JUG event has become a great series of conferences!

I also feel sad around the conference though. There's only one talk on the program about Eclipse. Working for the Eclipse Foundation I wonder what happened. Have we lost the contact to the Java community?

ECE 2012: Starting Soon

Just arrived in Ludwigsburg a couple of hours ago. Weather is great, the trees ave the fall colors, temperature is very nice. A golden October day.

At the Ludwigsburg Forum, the staff is tearing down from a industry show that ended last night. While the current status doesn't create a lot of confidence that we'll be all set in another 12 hours, I have seen it now many times, and to my surprise they managed to get everything set up just fine and in time.

People are starting to arrive in the Nestor hotel next to the Forum. Most of them have been attending before, but just a minute ago I ran into a guy from the US. It's his first time in Germany and obviously the first EclipseCon Europe. He's trying to hide his excitement - or is he feeling a little overwhelmed? In the hallway the packages that the sponsors sent in are piling up.

So, in a couple of hours we will start. I believe we got a good program, we have the folks from the OSGi community invited, and we got some good social activities planned for the evenings. Food's usually good, beer will be served. And my Adrenalin level is going down.

I'm hoping for a good conference.

EclipseCon Europe 2012: We need your help!

From October 23 to 25, 2012 the Eclipse Foundation will hold the 6 7th edition of our annual European Eclipse Conference.

EclipseCon Europe is all about community - learning, exploring, sharing and collaborating on the latest ideas and information about Eclipse. Contributors, adopters, extenders, service providers, consumer, business and research organizations alike, gather to share their expertise and learn from each other. 

Networking activities lead to synergies in the community, from giving and receiving help on specific technical issues to  generating new business opportunities. Sponsors of Eclipse Summit are an integral part of the entire event, participating in an exchange from all areas of their organizations from technical to management.

Last year we celebrated Eclipse's 10th anniversary together with more than 550 attendees at EclipseCon Europe.  This year the conference theme is open innovation: how enterprises, researchers and other organizations use Eclipse to develop innovative products and solutions. 

We are also co-hosting the European OSGi community event and are extending a special welcome to the International OSGi community. And, again  we are proud to have a solid technical program, but we won't just be networking and listening to technical talks. Let us surprise you with our evening program! Details will be published in the early part of October.

How can you help? Simply, spread the word. Please forward this blog post to your peers, colleagues and business partners. Invite them to join us for EclipseCon Europe 2012. Or simple put the attached JPEG to the announcement board in your hallway.

For more information, please visit the conference website http://www.eclipsecon.org or send me a quick email.

Thank you in advance!