FCW Insider: FOSE has some very cool keynotes

FOSE is still several months away, yet the FOSE people tell me that there are already 8,000 people who have registered. You can register at FOSE.com.

Yes, just a reminder that FOSE is owned and operated by the 1105 Government Information Group, which also owns Federal Computer Week and FCW.com.

As a result of that ownership, however, I get to be more involved in FOSE. For example, I get to sit in on the FOSE advisory board meetings, which is an impressive group. At the meeting last week, the FOSE planning team announced that they have the keynote speakers. I have seen two of the three of them and would highly recommend them.

FOSE takes place Tuesday, April 1, through Thursday, April 3.

So the keynote lineup:

Tuesday: Google speaks. It's no shock to anybody that Google continues to be the tech company that just about everybody is watching. (And the stock price is hovering around $700, which makes Google very powerful, too.) So for Tuesday, we'll get to hear about how Google is looking at the enterprise with Dave Girouard, vice president and general manager of Google Enterprise. Other people on the FOSE advisory board have seen Girouard speak before and they say he is good.

eWeek has an interview with Girouard  this week.

We're getting amazingly fast traction with small businesses, and now we're starting to see bigger businesses more. We definitely have some large businesses that are evaluating or piloting Google Apps. They like the vision that you ought to have some different types of solutions out there like Google as alternatives to IBM or Microsoft.

Any of the big guys, like Accenture or IBM Global Services, they all look at SAAS and it doesn't quite fit their model. They're used to saying, 'SAP installation, send in the school buses and we'll put people on site for a year.' SAAS is different, it's easier. What I would hope and expect in the coming months is that you're going to see big companies coming out and saying, 'We're using Apps, and we're using them to scale.

FCW featured Pogue last year at FCW's CIO Summit. He is a remarkable speaker, testing out -- all while on stage -- more than a dozen different products. That's no small challenge. I posted about many of them. He is also a professional musician and writes very creative lyrics around popular songs. Hear his holiday songs here.

If you've never seen Pogue, put Wednesday, April 2, on your calendar.

Thursday: Finally, on Thursday, April 3, FOSE's keynote will be Steven Squyres, a professor at Cornell University and the person who was overseeing the missions of those amazing little Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. Squyres has a new book out called "Roving Mars," which I just downloaded onto my Amazon.com Kindle e-book and will read it over the holiday break.

Again, FCW featured Squyres at the CIO Summit a few years ago and, as I wrote back then, he is really remarkable. In fact, as I even said back then, one of the great things about my job is that I get to meet and talk with simply amazing people. Squyres single-handedly turned me into a Mars rover groupie. These are some amazing critters. They were originally supposed to tour around Mars for 90 days. Well, they have have been going for years now. Talk about a government program that has worked -- and worked and worked and worked. And they have collected more data than NASA scientists ever expected. (I have done several posts on the Mars rovers. Read them here... and here... and here. I have also pulled together Mars rover links at del.icio.us/cdorobek/marsrover.)

Anyway, if you haven't seen Squyres, he is very entertaining -- but it is an interesting look at program management. After all, this is a program that simply had to be done on time. They have a window when they had to launch if they were going to reach Mars. Now, they did go over budget, but, I think most people would agree these days that it is all worth it.

Squyres also has a book out on the Mars rovers called... well, "Roving Mars." As I said, I've downloaded it and I'll report back next week.