This session will look at the use of Linux and other open-sourced
applications in the Financial industry. As Linux and open source have
matured, they have moved into the mainstream, becoming business-critical for a broad spectrum of companies. Along with this has come a renewed sense of need to use open standards, and to have control of one's own business destiny. This session will discuss the types of global companies that are taking advantage of the open source environment, and how open-sourced applications are interacting in the business-critical environment with the more traditional vendor supplied software. This session will also review the most recent frontier of business-critical usage of Linux and open source: the end-user desktop.

Biographical Summary:

Steve Carl is the manager of R&D Open Systems Support for BMC Software, Inc., [NYSE:BMC], a leading provider of enterprise management solutions. His team supports over 50 different versions of Unix, Microsoft Windows from NT 3.51 on and a wide variety of Linux distributions across many many platforms. Mr. Carl has over 20 years of computer industry experience and has been with BMC Software for over 14 years in a wide variety of roles including VM systems programming, OS/400 system programming, corporate email support and project management for a large Oracle Financials migration. He led the team that hooked BMC Software up to the Internet and deployed its first Web pages. Prior to working at BMC Software, Mr. Carl worked at a subcontractor to NASA at the Johnson Space Center on a similarly wide-ranging series of projects.

BMC Software, Inc. [NYSE:BMC], is a leading provider of enterprise management solutions that empower companies to manage their IT infrastructure from a business perspective. Delivering Business Service Management, BMC Software solutions span enterprise systems, applications, databases and service management. Founded in 1980, BMC Software has offices worldwide and fiscal 2004 revenues of more than $1.4 billion.