And so it begins. I registered last night here at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas to supposedly beat the lines, even though I still had to wait about a half-hour to get my packet. Now it’s Tuesday morning and the conference has officially begun, with a welcome address preceding keynotes and sessions this afternoon. I’ll be here until Thursday and will check in on the blog now and again.

Gartner analyst John Phelps said there are 2,000 attendees at the show. Some immediate polling of the audience has taken place. Here are some of the results:

• Gartner asked what server infrastructure people were running and offered nine combinations (mainframe only, Unix and mainframe,  Windows and Linux, etc.). The plurality said they run a mishmash: 40% said they run mainframe, Unix, Linux and Windows servers. Coming in second with 25% was people who are running Unix, Linux and Windows servers. The lowest: Mainframe and Unix at 0%, the old goose egg.
• 80% are either in the process of a server consolidation project or have already completed one. Only 3% have no plans for server consolidation.

The keynote this morning is called “The Future of Infrastructure and Operations” by Thomas Bittman, a Gartner analyst. I’ll be working on a full story about that speech later today.