HP user group grabs spotlight at show

ORLANDO - On the first day of the inaugural HP Technology Forum last week, Kristi Browder's real job evaluating servers took a back seat to speech-making, press interviews and receptions honoring her fellow users of HP's technology.

Most of the time, she's the IT director at Silicon Laboratories, currently rolling out HP servers using Advanced Micro Devices' Opteron chips to engineers at her company, who design chips for wireless networks.

But last week, Browder was one of the most visible HP users in Orlando as the president of Encompass , which is HP's major hardware user group following the demise earlier this year of another major HP user organization, Interex.

Encompass was first known as DECUS, Digital Equipment's user group. Two acquisitions later, Encompass now serves as a voice for HP technology users and a liaison between the company and the technical community, Browder said.

One of Encompass' primary roles is to put on user-oriented conferences, such as the HP Technology Forum, where HP professionals from around the world can share technical knowledge and take training classes in various technologies. Those conferences used to be independent affairs, but HP decided last year to exert more control over its user conferences and consolidate the HP World events into the HP Technology Forum.

Interex attempted to hold HP World without HP's support, but the organization closed in July, citing financial difficulties in preparing the show. That left 100,000 HP users without a formal organization representing their interests.

Encompass has reached out to the former Interex members, offering discounts on Encompass membership and naming Interex leaders to the Encompass board of directors, Browder said.

"We want to embrace the former Interex members and give them a home," she said.

Browder's fellow IT professionals are starting to relax again after five years of looking over their shoulders for a pink slip, she said.

"This has been a pretty brutal five years as an IT professional," Browder said. "But people are starting to have fun again, and that's one of the things behind this event. We want this event to be fun."

Browder has seen more movement in the IT professional ranks this year, as companies again start hiring IT workers.

After much hand-wringing in the IT community about the outsourcing and offshoring of IT jobs, Browder noted some companies are bringing work back into the U.S.

Encompass is still focused on helping IT professionals prepare for the possibility that their jobs might be sent elsewhere, Browder said.

Part of that training involves helping IT workers develop skills on the business side of the technology world, either to manage relationships with outsourcing vendors or join those companies themselves, she said.

On the technology side, Encompass is focused on helping HP users manage technology transitions, such as the move to high-end servers based on Intel's Itanium 2 processor, Browder said.

Smaller companies do not have the resources to move their servers to newer technology at the same pace that HP or Intel would like.