By now I hope that you are all aware that we are launching Informatica 9 on Tuesday.  The countdown has started and preparations are well under way.  When we set out on this journey, we decided to run a virtual launch instead of a traditional event in a hotel somewhere for a small group of followers. We set ourselves the goal of having 9,999 people register and decided to use the power of the internet to share our message.  Within this post I wanted to help you understand a little of what is going to unfold on Tuesday.

Doors open for the live conference at 8:45am Pacific Standard Time.  Currently registrations stand at over 11,000 which far exceeds the target set, and includes people from all over the world.  When you login I will be there to greet you personally.  You can then wander around to any of the conference areas.

There are four main elements to our conference environment – the main keynote, breakout sessions, a resource center and a live chat foyer:

• The main keynote starts at 9:00am exactly and so I would recommend you enter the conference before 9:00am. You will be informed that the keynote is going to start and you have to make your way to the keynote area.  The keynote will be given by Sohaib Abbasi, Informatica CEO and Chairman.  He will talk through the Informatica 9 announcements and be supported by product demonstrations, and early-adopter customers talking about the capabilities of Informatica 9.  The keynote will be followed by a live chat session where you can join in, enter questions, or simply watch the Q&A unfold.
• At 10:00am we will be presenting four breakouts.  These will be given by three of our general managers and our CIO.  They will include longer demonstrations to help you understand the power of Informatica 9.  The three breakouts will run side-by-side and you can leave one and enter another at any time. Live chat sessions will follow each where you can again join in.

Once the breakouts have finished, you can go to the resource center.  Here you will find customers and partners in their own words talking about Informatica 9, together with a number of white papers written by both industry analysts and Informatica’s solution marketing teams.  Please take a few minutes to read through the quotes – we are delighted by the support of more customers and partners than in any launch ever in the history of Informatica.

We welcome you to join us on twitter, or by writing your own blogs.  We will be posting various twitter-feeds throughout the launch, together with a number of Perspectives blogs.  When you comment please add the #INFA9 hashtag – we’d love to hear your feedback.

For all of you journalists and industry experts out there – we will be issuing a number of press releases prior to the event and afterwards a social media news release with links to launch resources.

This is a brave new world that we are embarking on.  Not only are we bringing to market our most important product release ever, but we are also using the internet as our launch vehicle for the first time ever!  Oh … one thing of a technical nature that I should add – to ensure that you have the best viewing experience possible, please make sure that your screen resolution is set to 1024×768.  Don’t ask me why … it’s the way it is!

Enjoy the launch; Informatica 9 is waiting for you!