Semantic Technology Conference Boasts Customer Case Studies from Bellsouth, Juniper, MetLife and US Air Force; 2nd Annual Conference Focuses on the Commercialization of Emerging Semantic Web Technologies

Business Wire, Feb 22, 2006

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- The Semantic Technology Conference (SemTech 2006), promises to confirm the rapid growth in adoption of semantic technologies when over a dozen customer case studies are presented during the conference on March 6-9, 2006, at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, California.

Featured organizations include:

--Todd Stephens of BellSouth will address the role of information consumers in taxonomy creation including how they have pioneered user-based taxonomies and how consumer behavior can affect the process of taxonomy design and implementation.

--Alan Boehme, CIO of Juniper Networks will discuss how Juniper delivers business agility via SOA.

--GE Global Research will illustrate the conceptualization, design and implementation of a component-based ontological framework for a water and process technology company.

--Time, Inc. will explain how a media giant met the challenge of successfully working with a variety of websites, all with varying functional and editorial needs, while still sharing core concepts used to classify content.

--Sima Yazdani, of Cisco Systems, will provide a practitioner's view of how enterprise taxonomies are serving as a stepping-stone toward Knowledge Networking.

--Carl Mattocks will describe MetLife's development and implementation of an Ontology that fulfills IT service management practice.

--Lee Stroupe will illustrate how Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee is working towards improving payer-provider connections and unify fragmented claims systems through the establishment of a common language and service-oriented architecture.

--Richard Sirmons of the US Air Force presents a case study on Deploying an Ontology-Based EII Solution at the USAF 45th Space Wing.

--Othel Rolle, Senior Director, Software & Data Applications, describes how ImpactRX accelerates market intelligence in the pharmaceutical industry using semantic technology.

Other case study contributors will include Cleveland Clinic, Sierra Nevada, National Institutes of Health, Raytheon, The Walt Disney Company, and General Motors.

SemTech 2006 will serve as a meeting point for all industry participants -- customers, developers, vendors, entrepreneurs, and researchers. It's a place for IT and business executives to learn how to meet the challenges of creating and resolving meaning within the software of today's enterprise, which is a critical step forward if information systems are to advance beyond their current limitations.

Semantics is quickly emerging as THE hot industry sector, and for good reason. According to Mills Davis of Project 10X, and author of the recently acclaimed Semantic Wave research report, "Semantic Technology is a $2 billion per year market and likely to grow to over $50 billion by the year 2010. Analysts have estimated that 35-65% of our system integration costs are allocated to resolving semantic meaning between systems. We have no choice but to address the issues as soon as possible."

Conference Sessions

Speakers at SemTech 2006 include such acclaimed keynotes as James Hendler, from the University of Maryland and Ora Lassila, of Nokia Research Center; Deborah McGuinness, of Stanford University; and Mills Davis, of Project 10X as well as other respected innovators such as Eric Miller, the Semantic Web activity lead for the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium); Doug Lenat, founder of Cycorp; and Dave McComb, author of the book "Semantics in Business Systems."

With more than 90 different sessions, SemTech 2006 has something for everyone - from basic non-technical business sessions on Semantics in Perspective to more technical discussions on Semantics in GRID Computing, Semantic Web Services, and specific industry ontologies.

SemTech 2006 is co-sponsored by major industry players including Oracle and Cerebra. Oracle, the world's largest enterprise software organization, is responsible for equipping businesses and governments around the globe with the tools needed to most effectively utilize their business systems. Cerebra leads the way in technology innovation and driving standards in the application and commercialization of semantic technology to unify data, content, and policy across organizations.

For more information or to register for this event, please visit www.semantic-technology.com.

About The Semantic Technology Conference

The Semantic Technology Conference (SemTech) is the leading educational conference on the commercial applications and opportunities for the burgeoning semantic technology industry. Launched in 2005, the conference immediately established itself as the convergence point for developers, entrepreneurs, investors and corporate customers. SemTech is organized by Wilshire Conferences (www.wilshireconferences.com) of Los Angeles and Semantic Arts (www.semanticarts.com) based in Boulder, Colorado. Wilshire Conferences is an IT-education firm that specializes in organizing events in which corporate practitioners can meet and share implementation experience. Semantic Arts is a boutique software architecture firm. Dave McComb, president of Semantic Arts and author of "Semantics in Business Systems" (Morgan Kaufmann) is the conference chairman.