Convergence, Chaos, and Consumers to be focus of keynote address by technology visionaries

Parks Associates and the Consumer Electronics Association today welcomed two technology visionaries, John Sculley, Co-founder and Chairman of Qbit LLC, Board Member of OpenPeak Inc. and former CEO of Apple, and Dan Gittleman, Chairman and CEO of OpenPeak, as the opening keynote speakers for CONNECTIONS™: The Digital Home Conference and Showcase.

CONNECTIONS™, produced by Parks Associates in partnership with CEA, will take place May 5-7, 2004, at the Wyndham Anatole in Dallas, Texas. Sculley and Gittleman will deliver the opening keynote, Convergence, Chaos and Consumers, on Wednesday, May 5, at 3:30 p.m.

During the keynote, Sculley and Gittleman will discuss how this convergence is accelerated by several powerful trends (including affordable home networking, pervasive broadband adoption and the availability of compelling digital media content). While these trends enable a host of new converged media experiences, they also threaten to create chaos for consumers. To address the challenges, Sculley and Gittleman will offer a broad, achievable vision of a digital home that exploits these trends while converting complexity and differing approaches into seamless, interoperable simplicity for consumers.

“With two speakers of this caliber, CONNECTIONS™ has the perfect start to three days of consumer and market analyses and frank discussions on the future of the connected home,” said Tricia Parks, President of Parks Associates. “We are extremely pleased to have John Sculley and Dan Gittleman at CONNECTIONS.”

John Sculley, who also is a former CEO of the Pepsi-Cola Company, is renowned for his legendary insight in consumer marketing and global business operations. Mr. Sculley’s consistent ability to identify and exploit technology trends and consumer demands has earned him the titles of “Marketing Man of the Year” by Advertising Age and AdWeek magazines as well as “CEO of the Decade” by Financial News Network.

Dan Gittleman founded OpenPeak in January 2002. It is a leading software company focused on creating simple user interfaces for unified, wireless control of consumer electronics, digital media content and home systems. OpenPeak’s software is designed to be integrated into products by global consumer electronics and personal computer original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). Currently-announced OEM partners include Philips Consumer Electronics, with more to be made public throughout 2004. Prior to founding OpenPeak, Mr. Gittleman was Chairman and CEO of StorageApps Inc., the world’s second largest provider of storage virtualization software as ranked by Gartner/Dataquest (June 2001). StorageApps was acquired by Hewlett-Packard in late 2001.

For more information about CONNECTIONS™, please visit www.connectionsconference.com or contact Parks Associates at 972-490-1113.

For more information about OpenPeak, please visit www.openpeak.com.

For information about sponsoring CONNECTIONS™, contact Candi Richardson at candi@parksassociates.com or call 972-490-1113.

About CONNECTIONS™
CONNECTIONS™: The Digital Home Conference and Showcase, produced by Parks Associates in partnership with the Consumer Electronics Association, is the largest international executive conference for digital home technologies. CONNECTIONS™ provides a comprehensive review of all aspects of the digital home value chain. Industry and consumer perspectives are provided through presentation of Parks Associates and CEA research, keynote speakers, panel speakers, media and organization support, and a show floor displaying the latest technologies. For information on sponsoring, speaking, or attending CONNECTIONS™, please visit www.connectionsconference.com.