1. The Server Battleground: AS/400 vs. Unix and NT
   

   Ed Thompson, Senior Analyst, Gartner Group

2. Achieving High Availability
   

   Donna Scott, Research Director, Gartner Group

3. The Year 2000 Is Coming: You Can't Stop It, But Can It Stop You?
   

   John Phelps, Research Director, Gartner Group

4. Managing the Relationship: How to Satisfy Internal Customer
   

   Diane Tunick, Senior Analyst, Gartner Group

The Server Battleground: AS/400 vs. Unix and NT

Tuesday, 10:40-11:40 a.m.
Ed Thompson, Senior Analyst, Gartner Group

New technologies, new applications, new requirements, and commodity pricing make the issue of server migration a real alternative for AS/400 users. Unix- and NT-based platforms are real alternatives for certain workloads now - but the marketplace is extremely dynamic. Certain AS/400 capabilities are not ready yet on alternative platforms. This session presents a pragmatic, impartial comparison of these three architectures today and over the next five years.

Key Issues Covered:

• Which workloads are more appropriate for AS/400, Unix and NT/Intel systems?
• How will AS/400, Unix and NT/Intel systems evolve over the next five years?
• For which workloads will AS/400 remain competitive and strategic over the next five years?

Achieving High Availability

Tuesday, 2:10-3:10 p.m.
Donna Scott, Research Director, Gartner Group

Implementing high availability strategies is like buying an insurance policy -- the tradeoff is in the cost of application downtime vs. premium for availability. With each new generation of technology, the price premium and implementation skill required for high availability are decreased. However, AS/400's unique single-level store architecture makes system failover more problematic.

Key Issues Covered:

• How will IT organizations justify investments in technologies that enable high availability?
• What technologies will be critical to achieve high availability?
• What strategies should data centers employ related to high availability?
• Which systems vendors will emerge as leaders in high availability?

The Year 2000 is Coming: You Can't Stop It, But Can It Stop You?

Wednesday, 10:10-11:10 a.m.
John Phelps, Research Director, Gartner Group

The Year 2000 crisis poses the most significant challenge ever faced by the IT industry. It will have an enormous impact on business applications, package solutions and systems software, even putting some companies at risk of business failure. The crisis is global, and all business software and data must be validated and fixed with a hard deadline.

Key Issues Covered:

• What is the scope of the Year 2000 problem?
• What is the impact on AS/400 enterprises?
• How should AS/400 enterprises solve the problem, and how much effort will it take?

Managing the Relationship: How to Satisfy Internal Customers

Wednesday, 11:20 a.m.-12:20 p.m.
Diane Tunick, Senior Analyst, Gartner Group

Success in today's service-oriented AS/400 environment means blending competencies and infrastructure services into offerings that uniquely satisfy customers' needs. IT professionals need to know who their internal customers are and what they consider valuable. In this presentation, geared for IS managers and directors, we explore what works and what doesn't work when it comes to maintaining the all-important connection with internal clients.

Key Issues Covered:

• How can IT professionals be effective partners with the business?
• How can IT organizations anticipate business requirements?
• What strategies can IS organizations use to measure customer satisfaction?
• Why marketing, and why now?
• How will the IS organization's contribution be judged?
• What marketing strategies should IS organizations adopt to strengthen their perception in the enterprise?