Mobile, frameworks, focus of 2010 Emerging Technologies for the Enterprise

On Thursday, about 450 software developers, IT managers and business executives from around the world ventured to Old City for Emerging Technologies for the Enterprise, a locally-organized, two-day conference for high-level enterprise software development discussion.
Patrons packed the Society Hill Sheraton’s outdoor patio, breaking from sessions—comprised of mobile, frameworks, agile development, management, infrastructure and languages tracks—talking and fielding phone calls beneath the stunning pink blossoms of Cherry trees. The hotel offered more space than last year’s conference, held in Conshohocken.

Now In its fifth year, Chariot Solutions has seen the conference grow from a small university-hosted conference of 50 people—comprised mostly of Chariot’s own employee speakers—to an international conference of high-level software development discussion. [Full Disclosure: Chariot is a long-time sponsor of Technically Philly]

“Conceptually, we’d like it to be a free conference,” but the increasing size and cost of organizing the conference has led to the conference’s $375 ticket fee, Chariot co-founder Michael Rappaport told Technically Philly in between sessions. None of the presenters are paid, organizers say.
The trending topic this year, says Rappaport, was mobile app development. Though there was a track dedicated specifically to the topic, discussion around mobile was peppered throughout other tracks and presentations.
Dozens of attendees were showing-off their new iPads and when one presenter asked how many in the room were using an iPhone, nearly all those present raised their hands. “Last year, mobile didn’t even have a presence,” Rappaport says. New frameworks, like Groovy, Grails and Ruby on Rails were also dominant.
The conference is certainly not for the average technology user. Most of the sessions were high-level breakdowns of development-specific topics and the processes, catered for business IT teams.
Speakers mingled with attendees throughout hotel conference grounds and there was generally a friendly atmosphere that also suggested that folks might have attended several conferences past with one another. In talking with about a dozen attendees—many from the region—most were pleased with what the conference had to offer.
Several sponsors showed off in the conference’s registration area, like Gigabit City, the local community and city government push to bring Google fiber to Philadelphia.
Attending the conference? Let us know what you thought of this year’s conference. Did it meet expectations?