“The speakers were superb, it was a fantastic location, we attracted an excellent attendance and there were several major announcements from Micro Focus,” says Sally Hanson, Micro Focus Global Marketing Communications Director. “Micro Focus World 2007 has really caused a stir in the market and taken the company to another level. Now we need to build on the awareness and confidence we’ve generated and push on even further.”

Billed as ‘the global forum for Enterprise Application Modernization’, the flagship Micro Focus World event took place at the magnificent Royal Pacific Resort in Orlando, Florida from Monday April 30th to Wednesday May 2nd 2007, and attracted a global audience of IT professionals from both the management and developer communities. “Traditionally this has been a developer-focused event,” explains Sally, “but this year we decided to open it up to the wider IT community and introduced two different but interchangeable streams, depending on the specific interests of the attendee.” The strategy worked, as the show was attended by over 360 Micro Focus customers and prospects from across the world, split more or less evenly between the two communities.

Among the highlights of an extensive and varied agenda were the announcement of Micro Focus’ acquisition of Acucorp, the launch of the new Enterprise View™ APM solution, thought-provoking keynotes from Gartner and Forrester, and a range of fascinating case studies from leading Micro Focus customers including HSBC, Tesco, Wachovia and UBS. But perhaps the biggest buzz was created by astronaut, cosmonaut and author Jerry Linenger, pictured above, who delivered an astonishing and powerful talk on his life-changing experiences in space. “Everybody was talking about Jerry’s speech afterwards, but all the speakers were excellent and the feedback from the audience was remarkable,” says Sally. “Very few events are supported by all three of our leading partners IBM, Microsoft and Oracle, and their combined presence added hugely to the credibility of Micro Focus World.”

The event was extensively reported in the world’s press and online media, and the coverage was overwhelmingly positive. “The success of Micro Focus World was a fitting finale to a successful first full year of trading under the new management team,” says Micro Focus CEO Stephen Kelly. “The buy-in from our partners has been exceptional, and I am delighted that they share our optimism for the future. Now we need to build on this momentum and take these positive messages out to a wider marketplace.”