Live from GearUp 2008

So far this is been pretty informative. Guy Kawasaki kicked off the morning in the Keynote, if you've not heard Guy speak before, he's fantastic. Later in the morning there was a panel comprised of CIO/IT Directors from a range of firms, including Ashurt from the UK. No surprises, everyone was still very much challenged with how to manage e-mail. In a room with well over 100 people, only 3 hands went up when the moderator asked who had 75% or higher of adoption for e-mail filing. After lunch there were several breakout streams, I sat in the on the Business Strategy track where Neil Araujo and Rafiq Mohmmadi outlined the product roadmap for the next 12-18 months, including their discussions around version 9, code named 'Meritage'. Much like the fine wine that blends the best from many grapes, Interwoven's version 9 purports to be a totally new platform, leveraging a SAAS model, which they hope will allow them to extend their product line to smaller firms that have traditionally found the implementation a barrier to entry. The last session was conducted by Jerome Pesenti, Chief Scientist at Vivisimo, the makers of Interwoven's new enterprise class search product. In true scientific form, Jerome quickly went through a myriad of slides, it would have been nice to see a live demo, but I think the audience certainly is interested in seeing more.