21st Annual Systems & Software Technology Conference (SSTC)

20-23 April 2009

Salt Palace Convention Center
100 South West Temple
Salt Lake City, Utah



"Technology: Advancing Precision"

Conference & Exhibitor Registration is now Open!

Available now:
   Download the SSTC 2009 Brochure (PDF)

Professional Development Opportunities:
   Prepare for SE Certification with an INCOSE Tutorial

Ok, I'm sure you reacted, just like everyone around our office did, with a puzzled look when you read this year's conference theme, "Technology: Advancing Precision". Let me elaborate on the concept behind the theme.

Recently, one of our IT staff came in, opened my computer, and inserted two small circuit cards into spare memory slots. Immediately, my computer had new life. It seemed to run like a new machine. As I talked to the IT rep, I learned he had just doubled its memory and the cost was only about $50.00.

If we look back over the past couple of years, I think one can conclude we haven't seen huge leaps in new technologies. Programming languages have had some stability. The probability of a new computer language being introduced, similar to the flurry around Ada's initial release, is somewhat low. What I believe we are seeing, as far as recent advancements, are little tweaks to proven technologies, which are having the effect of paying large dividends in the areas of performance, cost, schedule, time to delivery, communications, command and control, and weapons targeting, just to name a few. The Systems and Software Technology Conference (SSTC 2009) will focus on exploring how we, as a community, can affect Systems and Software by fine tuning Technology, thus, advancing the precision of Technology.

I invite you to join us back in Salt Lake City for SSTC 2009 from April 20-23.

Brent Baxter, SSTC Technical Manager