Supercomputer will challenge attendees at leading ISV Conference on Cloud Computing

WASHINGTON, May 4 — The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) today announced that IBM's Watson supercomputer will attend the All About the Cloud conference taking place next week in San Francisco. Registered media (see registration info below) are welcome to join Watson at the software industry's most comprehensive ISV conference on cloud computing.

All About the Cloud (Twitter: #AAC) is taking place May 8-10 at San Francisco's Palace Hotel, and Watson will be in attendance for all three days of the event. The computer will compete against attendees in trivia challenges, similar to the role it played on "Jeopardy!" last year.

IBM's Watson is an analytical computing system that specializes in understanding the meaning of natural human language and provides specific answers to questions across a broad domain of knowledge at rapid speeds. Watson demonstrates the future of computing systems design – how software and hardware is architected, integrated and optimized to solve business problems.

All About the Cloud will feature executives from Google Enterprise and Oracle, along with Pulitzer Prize finalist Nick Carr, columnist and celebrated author of "The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains," who will give keynote speeches. The event is presented by SIIA — the principal trade association for the software and digital content industries — in partnership with OpSource, a Dimension Data Company — the leader in enterprise cloud and managed hosting.

For more information or to register for the conference, members of the media should contact Beth Dozier at bethdozier@rational360.com. Online registration is also available at the All About the Cloud Media Center.

Registered media are also invited to attend a press conference on May 10th at 10:30 a.m., during which SIIA will to release "Vision from the Top." The second annual cloud computing forecast contains insights from 49 CEOs and other top executives, who each comment on where the industry is headed and how the cloud will continue to revolutionize the way the world does business.

For a complete schedule of events, visit http://www.siia.net/aatc/2012/schedule.asp.

About SIIA

The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) is the principal trade association for the software and digital content industry. SIIA provides global services in government relations, business development, corporate education and intellectual property protection to more than 500 leading software and information companies. The SIIA Software Division provides a forum for companies developing the applications, services, infrastructure and tools that are driving the software and services industry forward. For further information, visit www.siia.net/software.

About OpSource

OpSource, a Dimension Data company, provides cloud and managed hosting solutions that enable businesses of all sizes to accelerate growth and scale operations while controlling costs and reducing IT infrastructure support risks. More than four hundred Software-as-a-Service ISVs, cloud platform providers, carriers and enterprises rely on OpSource's expertise, experience and agility to operate high-availability, business-critical hosting environments. Our industry-leading Application Operations service goes beyond traditional hosting by providing application management, change management, performance management and application optimization. OpSource Cloud is the first cloud to bring together the flexibility, availability and community of the public cloud with the security, performance and control the enterprise demands. Founded in 2002, OpSource is SAS 70 Type II, PCI DSS Level 1 and European Safe Harbor certified and has operations in California, Virginia, UK, Ireland, and India. For more information, visit www.opsource.net.

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Source: OpSource