Recap- VITA Europe Congress, 1996
By Bob Squirrell, Director, VITA Europe
The highlight of VITA Europe's first year of activity following change of management was the VITA Europe Congress held from October 7th to 9th at Les Pyramides International Convention Center, Brussels, Belgium. With the theme of "VMEbus: The Systems Architecture for the 21st Century", the event was focused strictly on VMEbus. The Conference, chaired by Chris Parkman of CERN, ran to three parallel sessions with some 60 plus papers on offer, representing probably the most comprehensive VME event ever to occur in Europe. The Proceedings ran to almost 1000 pages!
Over 150 delegates attended over the three days, which kicked off on Monday with the first ever European presentation of Wade Peterson's (Author of the VMEbus Handbook) "Understanding VME64" seminar.
Tuesday's Plenary Sessions saw Ray Alderman (Executive Director, VITA) present the latest on the global market for VMEbus, followed by John Rynearson (Technical Director, VITA) updating the European audience on the latest developments within the VSO. Wayne Fischer of Force Computers then developed the theme with an update on VME64 Extensions and Eike Waltz of Rittal completed the picture with a review of new IEEE activities to resolve mechanical shortcomings for microcomputers.
The Conference then split into 3 sessions - Communications, Links and Buses chaired by Paul Stevens of Motorola; Software, chaired by John Rynearson and Systems Components, chaired by Chris Parkman.
Wednesday started with a Plenary Session from Jerry Gipper of Motorola who explained how new technology breakthroughs are being implemented by OEMs & Suppliers, followed by a further Plenary on ESSE presented by Ray Alderman. The conference then split into parallel sessions with Lennart Jirdin of CERN chairing the VMEbus in Research session while John Rynearson continued the Software session from Tuesday. Roland Chochoiek of Force chaired the VME and PCI session, Ludwig Pregernig of CERN chaired a session on Design Issues, Dieter Notz of ESONE chaired an Applications session and Olga Sinenko of VITA CIS (Russia) chaired the VMEbus in Industry session.
The Conference concluded with a panel discussion chaired by Bob Squirrell of VITA Europe. The Panel comprised Jerry Gipper, Bob Downing of the University of Illinois, Hermann Strass of Technology Consulting, Eike Waltz, Wayne Fischer, Chris Eck of CERN and Martin Timmerman of Real Time Consult.
Entitled "What Role for VMEbus in the 21st Century", the session was attended by over 100 people and elicited some thought provoking questions from the audience based on what had been presented and discussed over the preceding three days. The meeting concluded overwhelmingly that VMEbus has a definite and growing future in Europe in the 21st Century and that the title of the session should really have been "What Role for VMEbus Manufacturers in the 21st Century". Evidence was that they had a major part to play in the 21st century and that VITA was the mechanism through which many of them would be able to identify their roles.
All in all and despite having only 7 months in which to organise and promote the event, VITA Europe put on an excellent conference and trade show, which in itself was supported by some 30 VITA member companies including sponsors Force and Motorola. Many good leads were reported by the exhibitors, with a number of visitors travelling a great distance to the venue including those who came from Australia, South America and South Africa. (Some people have just no idea of what constitutes Europe! - Ed).
In terms of what the VITA Europe Congress achieved for VITA and the VMEbus market, press coverage in the 7 months run up to the event had been good owing largely to the support of the sponsoring journals, Micro Technology Europe (UK), Systeme (Germany), Elektronik i Norden (Sweden), Electronique (France), Real Time Magazine (Belgium) and EPN (Belgium). There was also good press attendance with editorial representatives of some 8 magazines all of whom stayed for one to two days and were pleased with the in-depth material they had acquired during the event. This should help to ensure continued in-depth coverage for VMEbus in Europe in the coming months.
Next year's Conference is now in the planning stages and contributions for papers are invited. Please send 100 - 150 word abstracts to Lyndsey Carter at VITA Europe, 1 West Street, Titchfield, Hants, PO14 4DH, England. Tel: +44 (0)1329 846166, Fax: +44 (0)1329 512063, Email: lyndseyc@gghnet.demon.co.uk