Keynote speakers from AMD, Avocent, IBM and IMEX Research will address the rapidly emerging trends in datacenter computing that are now driving the rapid adoption of blade systems, management software and modular components as this industry emerges into a multi-billion dollar marketplace. Keynote speakers will include:

• Ben Williams, vice president, Enterprise and Server/Workstation Business, AMD: "Redefining Blade Performance with Power-Efficient Technology."

• Dave Perry, senior vice president of Avocent: "Blade Glue: Using Embedded Standards to Make Blades Easier to Manage."

• Jeff Benck, vice president, IBM Server Group: "Blades: Mainstream and Beyond."

• Anil Vasudeva, principal analyst for IMEX Research: "The State of the Blade Server Industry."

"As blade servers are deployed to handle critical business workloads, enterprises expect more than just power and space savings," said AMD's Ben Williams. "System management software will play a key role in moving blades into enterprise data centers, and power efficiency and performance-per-watt are becoming major factors in defining total cost of ownership for data center solutions. Enterprise customers want to achieve the greatest possible server density while still keeping operating costs under control, which becomes possible through advanced technologies such as dual core processing and dynamic power management software."

Conference highlights include a special "Venture Capital in the Blade Industry" session hosted by IBM with panelists from Goldman Sachs, Dot Edu Ventures, American River Ventures, Geneva Venture Partners, PacifiCap Group and TPG Ventures. The panel will review one-page business plan overviews submitted by conference attendees and present awards to the most deserving plans.

IDC industry analysts will update their forecasts for the blade server market in a special presentation: "Server Blades -- A Platform for Data Center Consolidation." IDC forecasts have estimated the blade server market to reach $3.7 billion in revenue by 2006.

For the technically minded, tutorials will cover:

• An introduction to blade servers as well as best practices for blade-based data centers for data center managers, computer and network managers, CIOs, hardware and software engineers and others.

• Developing blade applications from a reference platform using IBM's eServer BladeCenter, as defined by the Blade Open Specifications (BOS).

• AdvancedTCA, the standard platform for next-generation telecommunications.

• Optimizing deployment and utilization of blade environments for large- scale applications such as Grid and utility computing through consolidation, virtualization, autoprovisioning, fault and disaster recovery and load management.

The Blade Systems Alliance (BladeS) Interoperability Demonstration will provide a live demonstration of advanced blade and modular computing systems, featuring datacenter solutions and technologies such as heat reduction through power management, the industry-standard IPMI management interface, diskless blades booting from SAN and WAN and single image management of servers, storage and networks. Vendor equipment integrated in the BladeS Interop Demo will include blade systems and related technologies from 3UP Systems, APCC, Avocent, Emulex, IBM, NEXCOM, SharkRack, The Siemon Company, Unisys and XIOtech.

Server Blade Summit's ever-popular Beer and Pizza Shootout will provide a spirited and freewheeling debate: "A Million Blades -- Who Needs Them, Why, and When?" Avocent and Blade Systems Alliance, the non-profit trade organization advocating on behalf of blade systems and modular computing, will host a reception for press, analysts and VIP guests.

"Blade servers represent the future of the datacenter, and Server Blade Summit 2005 stands at the forefront of the one of the fastest growing segments in the IT industry," said Lance Leventhal, conference director of Server Blade Summit 2005. "This year's conference features ground-breaking innovations and insightful business and technical perspectives from all corners of the blade systems, storage, networking, software and modular computing industries. If your livelihood or profession has anything to do with datacenter computing, Server Blade Summit 2005 is a must-attend conference."

Sponsoring exhibitors at Server Blade Summit 2005 include: Broadcom, IBM, AMD, Avocent, Cyclades, SharkRack, Raritan, Altiris, Brocade, Blade Systems Alliance and media sponsor FierceCIO. Other exhibitors include 3UP Systems, American Megatrends, American Power Conversion, Emulex, Fujitsu Microelectronics, Mellanox Technologies, Micro Memory, M-Systems, QLogic, RLX Technologies, Server Technology and Storage Networking User Groups.