Biographical note

Rick Sturm, MBA, has over 30 years of experience in the computer industry. He is CEO of Enterprise Management Associates (EMA), a leading industry analyst firm that provides strategic and tactical advice on the issues of managing and securing computing and communications environments. EMA is a leading industry analyst firm that provides strategic and tactical advice to major corporations and government agencies on the issues of managing computing and communications environments and the delivery of those services. He was co-chair of the IETF Applications MIB Working Group that developed the standards for managing application software with SNMP. Rick has authored hundreds articles about various aspects of enterprise management that have appeared in leading trade publications in the US, Europe and Asia. He has also co-authored four books: The Foundations of Application Management, Foundations of Service Level Management, SLM Solutions: A Buyer’s Guide, and Working with Unicenter TNG. Carol Pollard is Full Professor of Computer Information Systems at Appalachian State University, USA. She holds a PhD in Management Information Systems and Business Administration from the University of Pittsburgh. She also holds an ITILv3 Certificate. She was a research analyst for IBM for 7 years and has served as Associate Editor for the Journal of Global IT Management for the past 10 years and for the International Journal of Decision Sciences since 2010. Her research focuses on application lifecycle management, IT Service management, IT project management and IT for sustainability. She has presented her research at international academic and practitioner conferences including the International Conference on Information Systems, Hawaii International Conference on Systems Sciences, Australasian Conference on IS, Pacific Asia Conference on IS, PINK, IBM Pulse and IBM Innovate. Her research is featured in international journals including MIS Quarterly, Journal of MIS, Journal of IS Education, International Small Business Journal, Group Decision and Negotiation and IT Professional. Julie Craig has over 25 years of deep and broad experience in software engineering, IT infrastructure and integration engineering, and application management. She holds a BA degree in Psychology from Lycoming College, an Associates’ degree in Computer Science from the Pennsylvania College of Technology, and an MS degree in Computer Information Technology from Regis University. As a former software engineer and IT infrastructure engineer for global software companies, she managed development teams, developed software including enterprise management products, and deployed multiple commercial system, application, and performance management solutions. Her experience in commercial software companies also included development of communications software supporting television broadcasting and commercial integration applications. She is internationally recognized for her thought leadership in the Application Management space, with numerous webinars, videos, and speaking engagements to her credit. She has been broadly quoted and continues to contribute to a wide variety of industry publications.