Alacos co-founder Luis Aguilar Lemarroy focuses on developing best of breed systems migration technology. His interests are in implementing open source systems and applications in corporations and governments. Prior to founding Alacos, he worked for SIEMENS in Germany where he researched new technology trends. His interest in making technology accessible to the developing world has led to his interest in the Open Source Movement and the Linux operating system. He holds a Masters degree from the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich.

Joe Born has started two successful consumer electronics companies using both proprietary and open source development. Neuros Technology differentiates itself in the highly competitive multimedia device space (portable digital audio and video) by opening up its devices. Neuros sells its devices directly and through retailers worldwide.

Niel Bornstein is a Senior Architect in Novell's Strategic Services consulting practice. A graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology, he has spent 15 years working on corporate and commercial client-server, N-tier, and web-hosted applications, in an impressively random assortment of industries. He lives in Marietta, Georgia, with his wife and two children, an array of animals, and a few glowing boxes. He is the author of ".NET and XML" and co-author of "Mono: A Developer's Notebook."

For the past 10 years, Benjamin has been traveling around the world (through 145 different countries), learning to speak multiple languages, working with troubled teens living on the street, and is now the PR Gaming Guru for GarageGames.com, a leading publisher and developer of fun games for Windows, Mac, Linux, Xbox and Xbox360. Benjamin has a passion to use his skills to open the door for indies to make thier games and succeed in the gaming industry.

Kevin Carmony is President and CEO of Linspire, Inc., maker of the leading desktop Linux operating system Linspire. Mr. Carmony has been with Linspire since its inception in 2001 and served as president and COO before moving to CEO. Prior to joining Linspire, Carmony served as CEO of NewVox Records from March 2000 to March 2001 and CEO of TrueVerse Management from August 1998 to March 2000.

Brenno de Winter, 34, wrote his first program at the age of six and discovered Linux in 1993. While enjoying the operating system he worked in several positions. Since 2001 he only spend his time talking, teaching and writing about open source, security and voice-over-ip. His expertise drove him to write a book on Linspire and standup for digital rights.

Rob is President and Principal Analyst of the Enderle Group, a forward looking emerging technology advisory firm. With over 25 years experience emerging technologies he has provided regional and global companies with guidance in how to better target customer needs; create new business opportunities; anticipate technology changes; select vendors and products; and anticipate market changes.

Michael Evans joined Red Hat in 1999 from the acquisition of Bluecurve, Inc. He has been VP, Business Development and VP, WW OEM and Channel Sales for Red Hat, and now looks at emerging business and technology areas for Red Hat. Prior to Red Hat he was a founder of Bluecurve, Inc., which specialized in capacity and performance management software. Prior to Blueucurve he was in charge of business development for Intel platforms at Sybase, and has over 22 years experience in sales, marketing, and business development in the technology market. Evans graduated from the University of Michigan.

Nat Friedman is the Vice President of Linux Desktop Engineering at Novell. He is a programmer who cofounded Ximian, Inc, a Linux desktop company sold to Novell in 2003. Nat is involved in several open source desktop projects, including GNOME, Evolution, Beagle, F‑Spot and Banshee.

Marcel Gagné (Canada's Linux Guru), is probably best known as the award-winning author of the Linux Journal 'Cooking with Linux' series, for which he received the Readers' Choice award for favorite column five years in a row. His fourth, and more recent book, the second edition of his immensely successful "Moving to Linux: Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goodbye!' is available in stores now. One of the best known voices of the Linux and open source world, he has written numerous articles on Linux and open source projects for various publications including Linux Journal, InformIT, Unix Review, SysAdmin magazine, and several others. He also appears regularly on radio (as Computer America's Linux correspondent), at industry shows, user groups, universities, and as the Linux guy on Tech TV's "Call for Help". He has written about, installed, and taught many open source applications including the Linux desktop environment itself, as well as the popular OpenOffice.org office suite. A long-time systems and network administrator, Marcel is a published science fiction author and editor, a pilot, an avid science and astronomy buff, and a former top 40 disc jockey. He also folds a mean Origami T-Rex.

As COO, Laurent oversees marketing, engineering, professional services, human resources and operations. Prior to joining Open Country, Laurent served as COO of eCode, VP of marketing of Phoenix Technologies (NASDAQ: PTEC), VP of marketing of Award Software, President and founder of QualSoft, VP of Sales of Veritas Software (NASDAQ: VRTS) and spent ten successful years at Hewlett-Packard in a variety of senior business development and marketing positions. Laurent earned a B.A. in Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley and a French National Baccalaureate in philosophy and modern languages. Laurent is the sole inventor of US Patent 6,009,520 and co-inventor of US Patents 6,560,702 and 6,564,318 addressing the manageability of application software, system software and enabling firmware in computer systems and embedded devices. He serves on the board of directors of CodeWeavers.

Before starting Silver Strand Solutions, Patrick was vice president of sales and marketing for Chicago Area based Alescere LLC. Alescere was on the forefront of Linux based SIP PBX systems which caught the attention of Linux Journal Magazine at the 2002 Linux World Convention in NYC. Silver Strand Solutions is dedicated to creating migration paths to open source for the SOHO environment. Recently, Silver Strand has started working with Linspire to assist the State of Indiana in making its one-for-one program a stunning reality. Patrick speaks frequently to Chicago area Colleges, Universities, and computer clubs about the history, future, and current position of Linspire, Linux, and Open Source Software.

Tim Griffin is founder and President of Userful, a Desktop Linux company founded in 1999 whose software turns one computer into ten. Tim holds a Masters Degree in Industrial Design from the University of Calgary. Tim is a serial entrepreneur, leading various consulting, research, and design companies prior to founding Userful. Prior to founding Userful, Tim conducted pioneering research into laptop and input device design. He also performed and taught as a professional cellist and co-authored a book on the subject.

Ted Haeger has been advocating cutting edge enterprise technology for over a decade by using unconventional approaches to understanding and solving ongoing and emerging business problems. Ted has developed a reputation for being one of those rare technology marketers who actually implements and uses the technology he advocates. Ted's characteristically enthusiastic speaking style has earned him a humorous nick name: "Reverend Ted." Today, he is responsible for connecting the worldwide community of avid Novell fans with Novell's business and technology direction. He blogs about his adventures in community marketing, open source, and Linux at reverendted.blogspot.com.

Brian King has been involved in the Mozilla community since 1999. In that time, he has worked on both free and for-profit software built on top of the Mozilla Application Platform. He is one of the core site admins at mozdev.org, a community site for hosting Mozilla-based projects and for promoting Mozilla technologies. Brian is an independent consultant, focusing mainly on Mozilla application development, and does much of his work for Mozdev Group, Inc, a Mozilla services company.

Mike Machado is CEO of SageTV, provider of the award winning SageTV Media Center software for Linux and Windows. SageTV is working to bring powerful, affordable, and reliable PVR/Media Center capabilities to the latest consumer electronics and IPTV embedded set-tops and connected devices as well as Media Center focused PC hardware. Previously he was VP Technology of Software.com, a provider of scalable and reliable carrier class email and webmail software to leading ISPs, Web portals and mobile phone messaging providers. Prior to that Mike was founder and CEO of Mobility.net, a provider of webmail software to leading ISPs and Web portals.

Formerly director of marketing for Ximian, Greg Mancusi-Ungaro currently directs marketing activities for Linux and open source initiatives at Novell. Greg is also reponsible for marketing openSUSE, SUSE Linux and Novell Linux Desktop. A veteran of the technology industry, Mancusi-Ungaro directed world wide marketing activities for Webhire, and held many positions at Lotus Development Corporation, most notably serving as program and product manager for the Lotus business division.

Geoffrey Moore is a best-selling author, a Managing Director at TCG Advisors and a venture partner at MDV. Recognized as a leading business consultant to large companies facing formidable strategic challenges, Geoffrey works with established enterprises in his role of Managing Director of TCG Advisors. In this role, he divides his time between consulting on strategy and transformation challenges with senior executives and developing mental models to support the practice. With this focus in mind he has written Dealing with Darwin: How Great Companies Innovate at Every Phase of Their Evolution. Also recognized for his expertise in market development and business and investment strategies, as a Venture Partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures he serves as an advisor to many of their portfolio companies by drawing upon best practices derived from his extensive background working with technology startups.

Geoffrey has made the understanding and effective exploitation of disruptive technologies the core of his life's work. His books, Crossing the Chasm, Inside the Tornado, The Gorilla Game, and Living on the Fault Line are best sellers and required reading at leading business schools. Highly regarded as a dynamic public speaker, Geoffrey is the founder of The Chasm Group and currently is the managing partner of TCG Advisors. Earlier in his career, he was a principal and partner at Regis McKenna, Inc., a leading high tech marketing strategy and communications company, and for the decade prior, a sales and marketing executive in the software industry.

He holds a bachelor's degree in literature from Stanford University and a doctorate in literature from the University of Washington.

Ian Murdock is Chief Technology Officer of the Free Standards Group and chair of the Linux Standard Base (LSB), the FSG's Linux compatibility standard. He is also the founder of Debian, one of the first Linux distributions and still one of the most popular with millions of users worldwide.

Scott Nelson is responsible for managing Real's relationships with distribution partners for the RealPlayer for Linux, as well as enabling devices and applications with Real's universal digital media Helix technology. Mr. Nelson has been with Real since 2001 in Sales and Business Development roles working with developers and partners of Real. Prior to joining Real, Mr. Nelson was the Media & Entertainment Manager at SGI and Director of Sales at one of the first Iweb hosting companies that later became Global Crossing; prior to this he was the Regional Sales Manager at Alias/Wavefront. He's also managed Special Government Projects for Tektronix. Mr. Nelson received a BS in Computer Science from California State University, Chico.

John is the Linux Printing Program Manager at HP. In this role, he directs all Linux printing activities in HP's Imaging and Printing Group. John led the release of HP's first open source Linux printer driver in 2001, and has led initiatives to enable printing from digital cameras, mobile phones, PDAs and digital entertainment devices.

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Wade Olson has been in the software industry since 1993 and has had consulting engagements with Sony, Wells Fargo, Medtronic, United Health Group and many others. He began working with the KDE community in 2000 and has steadily become more involved, being elected to the KDE Marketing Working Group in 2005.

Steve Oualline is a Software Engineer and Writer with over thirty years experience. His books include "Practical C Programming", "Perl for C Programmers", "Practical C++ Programming", "How Not to Program in C++", and "Wicked Cook Perl". His writing have been translated into French, German, Chinese, Japanese, and a couple of languages he can't recognize.

Geoff Perlman is founder, president and CEO of REAL Software, creators of REALbasic, a development environment and language that runs on Linux as well as Windows and Macintosh. His day-to-day experience is in helping companies migrate existing applications to Linux. An avid computer user since the age of 10, Mr. Perlman has worked in the technology field for companies like 4D and AT&T and is a published author.

Jerry Puda is Director of Business Development for FarStone Technology, an Irvine, CA based software company specializing in the "Optimization of PC System Recovery and Performance" solutions. FarStone is committed to providing all end users with personal disaster recovery & continuous data protection solutions for both Linux and Windows environments. Jerry's background in the software and storage industry encompasses 15 years of experience bringing award winning solutions, industry firsts and setting new standards for data and disaster recovery best practices. Jerry has served as Director of Business Development for Computer Associates (Cheyenne Software), Connected Corporation, Overland Storage, and Previo. He has held executive positions in several software ventures and has been responsible for OEM relationships and creation of industry-leading products with major PC manufacturers such as HP, Compaq, IBM and leading software companies such as Tivoli, Legato Systems (EMC), Intuit and Veritas. Jerry's influences on the PC system restore and backup market has brought on-line services and simple, easy to use software and appliances to the market. Every user, whether consumer or corporate deserves to have the highest level of powerful, automatic, user-friendly data backup and system recovery. Come to the FarStone session to hear how these solutions are coming to the Linux desktop!

John is currently VP of Product Management at Zimbra, where he oversees the product direction and go to market plans for the Zimbra Collaboration Suite. Previously, John was the Director of Messaging Products at Openwave Systems (OPWV). John managed the business and product strategy for the mobile messaging group, which included the multimedia messaging (MMS), voice mail and instant messaging product lines.

In his 18-year career, high-tech entrepreneur Michael Robertson has spearheaded a cache of diverse, high-profile companies ranging from digital music to operating systems to VoIP to entertainment. Not one to shy from controversy, his quest to offer competing products and innovative technologies has brought him face to face with corporate giants and corporate lawsuits. But his madness always has a method producing relevant technology and products that bring choice and freedom back to the consumer. Be it MP3, Linux, software, or hardware, Michael has built his career on supporting open standards that empower consumers. With companies like Linspire, SIPphone, MP3tunes, and Ajax13, Michael has entered industries that traditionally had only one or two dominant players. But with each industry he tackles, Michael's end goal is trying to bring competition and freedom of choice back to the marketplace. And restoring that freedom is the undercurrent of every venture he helms.

Dave Rosenberg is Chief Information Officer for Glass Lewis & Co., a leading investment research and proxy advisory firm where he oversees the strategic implementation and operations of the company's IT infrastructure. Rosenberg also serves as Principal Analyst for the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL), a global consortium dedicated to accelerating the adoption of Linux. In this role, Rosenberg conducts analyses of market trends, manages communication programs and evangelizes OSDL's mission to increase adoption of Linux and open source technologies. Previously, Rosenberg was Programs Director for LinuxWorld and Comdex and held technology and marketing positions at Sprint, OmniSky and NorthPoint Communications. At OmniSky his work on wireless provisioning systems was awarded a U.S. Patent. He contributes regularly to leading industry and business publications, including InfoWorld, ComputerWorld, CNET, ZDNet, Release 1.0, IT Managers Journal, Slashdot and IBM DeveloperWorks. He authors the popular "Open Sources" weblog on InfoWorld.com. Rosenberg holds a BA from Rutgers University and an MBA from Pepperdine University.

Doc Searls is co-author of the business best-seller The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual. In the book, the authors suggest that the Internet has done two things that fundamentally change our way of doing business. First, it radically shifts the balance of power between supply and demand, giving the demand side (customers) far more power. Second, it turns markets into conversations, where supply and demand is only a handshake apart, emulating pre-industrial marketplaces. Companies that remain disengaged from their markets, and continue to assault them with unwanted "messages," are in trouble. Doc Searls, an early observer of these trends, is senior editor for Linux Journal, and a leading figure in the Linux and Open Source software movements.

Donya Shirzad manages the Linux and Macintosh player products for RealNetworks and the Helix Community. She has been with RealNetworks since 1999 and has worked on a variety of projects, including streaming media over satellite links, players on handheld devices, and linux-driven home stereo components. Donya graduated with a BS in Computer Software Systems from University of Washington and has worked in the software industry for over 10 years. In her spare time she enjoys learning languages and writing music.

Young Song is the co-founder, president and CEO of NComputing, Inc. Song has more than 15 years of experience in the PC industry with extensive engineering, marketing, and senior executive experience. Prior to NComputing, he was also a former co-founder and vice president of product marketing of eMachines, Inc. which was later acquired by Gateway, Inc. At eMachines, Young spear-headed his vision of affordable, high performance $399 PCs and delivered a brand-recognized product line to the consumer market that helped eMachine?s grow from a start-up to $800M in revenue and its IPO in less than 2 years.Young Song is best known for his innovative ideas, cost effective concepts, and deliverable results.

David Uhlman is CEO of Uversa Inc. a Phoenix based software company committed to furthering and improving Open Source software for business. David has a long background with Open Source Software and the business of Open Source. He has been a contributor to many popular Open Source projects including and others. He has been an executive at several successful Open Source companies from server appliances to business processes.

Living and working in SIlicon Valley for twenty years, Peter van der Linden has much experience and a great deal of knowledge about the computer industry. He has worked for companies ranging from invisible start-ups, to high profile industry leaders like Apple and Sun Microsystems. Peter has a dual career as software engineering manager, and best-selling author of technical books. In the latter role, he penned the popular books "Expert C Programming" and "Just Java". His most recent work is "Peter van der Linden's Guide to Linux" (Prentice-Hall 2005).

Stephen is responsible for developing and managing Optaros' relationships with the open source community. Previously Stephen was an advocate for open source at Microsoft, where he was focused on the technical implementation of open source-related community projects, creating a business model at Microsoft to engage in the open source community. Stephen was the Vice-president, R&D and a founder at Softway Systems, Inc, the developer of the Interix environment to re-host UNIX applications on NT. Stephen was also an independent consultant for X/Open, Sun, UNISYS, and the Canadian government. He was once a development manager at Mortice Kern Systems, and a systems analyst at EDS. Stephen was a long time participant and officer at the IEEE and ISO POSIX standards groups, representing both USENIX and EUUG. Read Stephe's thoughts on open source, standards, and the business of software at http://stephesblog.blogs.com/