CASCON

Welcome to CASCON '92 -- Ideas in Action. I am very pleased to once again participate in this outstanding research conference and to witness first hand the tremendous work being done by the Centre for Advanced Studies (CAS)and its research partners.

CAS is designed to serve as a focal point for software research -- bringing together the best of the best from universities, research institutes and other IBM laboratories and research centres from around the world. As the pace of technology quickens and the cost of doing research and development soar, our ability to stay competitive as a nation will depend more and more on cooperative efforts such as those fostered through CAS.

CASCON '92 is an outstanding demonstration of just what can be accomplished when industry, academia and government join forces to put their "Ideas in Action" -- leveraging ideas, resources and skills.

Over the next four days you will have an opportunity to view approximately 70 world class technology and product demonstrations ;attend more than 40 speeches and presentations by industry, government and research leaders ;and participate in a number of intense technical workshops on subjects from distributed systems to multi-media. It's not often that we have so many highly-skilled individuals together under one roof. I urge you to take the time to view the exhibits and talk to the experts.

I am pleased to welcome you to CASCON '92 -- Ideas in Action. This conference, our second, recognizes the advanced technology projects sponsored by the IBM Toronto Laboratory's Centre for Advanced Studies (CAS)and the cooperative research efforts of the academic and industrial community.

Each CAS project is associated with one or more of the Lab's software development areas. Our Lab has a broad portfolio of application development and enabling technology missions that are strategic to IBM's international business and demand we develop state-of-the-art solutions for our customers.

Through these development groups, we share our technology challenges with our CAS research partners. By bringing together the best of the best, both inside and outside IBM, we all benefit through the leveraging of resources and the sharing of expertise. The results of these cooperative efforts are clearly visible here today.

Building on the success of last year's conference, we have expanded this year's program to include more demonstrations, speakers and workshops. In addition, because the CAS projects are so closely tied to our software development efforts here in the Lab, we have included product demonstrations from our Lab development areas.

CASCON '92 is sure to be a demonstration of Ideas in Action and an opportunity to share information with the many talented university, government and industry leaders who are joining us here today.

Welcome to CASCON 92! This conference, our second, emphasizes Ideas In Action: successfully bridging the gap between research and development to bring new ideas and new value to the computer industry. CASCON '92 amply demonstrates the success of working hand-in-hand with other research partners, with more than fifty research papers (featuring an even dozen from IBM Canada Laboratory developers), sixteen presentations or panel discussions, and seventy demonstrations.

In addition, you will have the opportunity to hear from many distinguished speakers about their view of our research contributions. There is certainly something here for everyone! All mission areas of the IBM Canada Laboratory are represented: Integration Technology, Database, Language Technology, Distributed Services, and Image Systems.

Our Day One and Day Two programs at the Ontario Science Centre area vibrant mix of keynote speakers, invited presentations, panel discussions, and research papers -- as well as project demonstrations. Day Three and Day Four activities each include a keynote speaker and five parallel workshops focusing on research contributions of CAS project members, collaborators, and Laboratory developers.

Day Three begins with a keynote address on "Future Trends in Database Systems, "followed by parallel workshops on Multidatabasc Systems, Distributed Systems, High-Bandwidth Networks, Visualizing Software Objects, and Computer Supported Cooperative Work.

Day Four begins with a keynote address on "Compiling for Parallelism," followed by parallel workshops on Reverse Engineering, Parallel and Object-Oriented Programming, Computer Aided Software Engineering, and Software Engineering Environments, as well as CORDS, the CAS project aimed at providing a software environment for building and operating distributed systems.

Day Three and Day Four workshops are certain to be of interest to a wide variety of specialists: database, compilers, distributed systems, image, etc., as well as to software developers in general. CASCON92 is represents a wonderful chance to learn, exchange ideas, and grow professionally. Enjoy the conference!