2016 Common Europe Congress Concludes

Luxembourg, Europe; 17 June, 2016. An IT community truly representing Europe.Common Europe elects new Executive Committee. The 2016 Common Europe Congress (CEC) concludes as one of the best IT events in recent Common Europe history. It was held in Stockholm, Sweden, this past 12-14 June. The Congress hosted 320 participants from 20 different countries, 19 exhibiting vendors from across Europe, 20 students from 5 different European Universities, and offered over 90 technical and executive sessions. Its highlight was “IBM i for business”, the latest release IBM i 7.3 squarely focused on business needs: deepen your data insight, forecast trends with more advanced analytics and offer enhanced security management. The enriched presence of IBM i in the Open Source world was its second noteworthy message.

“With Congress attendees from 20 different countries, this Congress truly represents a vibrant European IT community”. It’s clear this gathering is gaining momentum and has business needs on its radar. I look forward to new successes in the coming years”, said Ranga Deshpande, Common Europe’s newly elected President.

Additionally, at a meeting that took place during the Congress, the Common Europe board elected / re-elected its executive committee for the coming year. The executive committee is charged with moving the organization forward in 2016 and 2017. The 2016-2017 Executive Committee is as follows:

President: Shrirang “Ranga” Deshpande, Common Belgium
Vice-President: Thomas Schweizer, Common Switzerland
Treasurer: Paul Roy, Common Luxembourg
Marketing Director: Torbjörn Appehl, Common Sweden (Data 3)
Technical Director: Christoph Cuscoleca, Common Austria

About Common Europe (CE)
Common Europe, an IT user community of IBM based solutions, is an umbrella organization of European national IBM Power Systems™, IBM i™, AIX™, and Linux™ user groups. It aims to “boost networking, share experiences, provide advanced education and training, influence IBM products and solution strategy, offer savings and efficiencies to its members and accelerate an on‐going open dialogue with IBM and other vendors”. It is a European non‐profit community of organizations and individuals using IBM solutions. For more information, please visit www.comeur.org or contact Ranga Deshpande, CE President, at ranga@comeur.org or Ralph Gervasi, CE, at ralph@comeur.org.