2021. What an interesting year. With the world turned upside down by a pandemic that seemingly had its sights set on...
NonStop TBC 2023 Conference provides perfect backdrop that balances technology with commercial interests
By Craig Lawrance
OmniPayments
What a great show! We at OmniPayments observed a strong focus on the AI Topic. This is all very interesting for us that are bit longer in the tooth, because I seem to recall this topic becoming top flavor a number of times in the past. It was a topic even while I was studying for my degree. The main difference today is the processing power and large volume of iron to process it. AI for good and AI for evil – both need to be considered with great care. When AI gets into the military we probably need to start worrying.
Attendee levels were strong, especially amongst the HPE staff and vendors, with what felt like a diminishing number of customer attendees. Whether this due to the broader economic cycle or fewer actual customers we can’t be sure. Yet, sometimes, it is simply a case of quality over quantity as the number of NonStop customer leaders making an appearing was encouraging.
As for the OmniPayments presentations, Yash updated the quorum of attendees striking a good balance between business commercial and technical.
Vikas gave a user presentation on Synchrony’s deployment of core OmniPayments technology infrastructure. Vikas included a discussion on the implementation of a PayPal connection on NonStop to ensure guaranteed availability of the payment service.
One new guest of OmniPayments who are still in their deployment phase was a high-end retailer by the name of “Palacio de Hierro”, an equivalent in the UK would be Harrods or at a stretch John Lewis department store. Further details of this customer will likely emerge over the coming months as the implementation continues.
Hotel and accommodation and event organization were very good. There was no lack of food and beverages on hand and for those who wanted to pursue conversations late into the night, there were a number of hospitality suites open till very late.
However, one of the more social comments surrounding the event was the lack of outside restaurants for organizing dinners with clients and the like. More local choice would have made things easier. Perhaps the 1958 movie starring Gregory Peck, Charlton Heston and Jean Simmons applies here: “It’s a Big Country”. It seems like the Californian Burlingame options may be better.
News of next year’s venue was announced as the conference came to a close. Looks as though we are all heading back to California but this time, to the surrounds of Monterey. From experience there are no shortages of restaurants and bars and, of course, the famous aquarium from yet another movie, “Star Trek 4 The Voyage Home” will likely be featured at some point and for many of us who plan on attending this indeed could become the highlight of the conference.