A small group of leading HPC users held an initial planning session at IDC headquarters in October 1999. The user forum began accepting requests to join at that point, and to date has received commitments totaling over 30 memberships. A planning Committee meeting was held on April 17th and the next one is scheduled for July 24th. The first meeting of the full forum will be on September 18th and 19th. The top-level goals are to promote the achievements of technical HPC users, and work to ensure that their requirements are addressed by HPC vendors and government funders.
Benefits differ for each membership category.
All user categories entitle members to participate and vote in full forum meetings, SIG meetings and policy roundtable meetings. Vendor members are entitled to attend full forum meetings in a nonvoting capacity, and to attend other meetings when invited by users. Members in all categories are also entitled to copies of unique IDC reports and other materials prepared in conjunction with the forum. Yes, and not just hardware vendors. More Hardware Analyst Spotlights Copyright ID C, 2001.