COMMON Europe will distribute its fourth global multilingual "Top Concerns" survey during April and May. It is a strategic feature of COMMON Europe for revealing the concerns of the IT community and sharing them with members, IBM, and other providers of IT infrastructure and solutions. The 2008 survey showed that IT security, satisfying internal customers,

fast application development, and keeping skills current were the top global concerns. Full results from last year's survey are available at the COMMON Europe web site http://www.comeur.org/

This year's survey, also available at www.comeur.org, comprises concerns about security, server consolidation, application architectures and personal development. It has space for writing in a "golden" concern and has questions on current economic and migration issues. It addresses members of COMMON and other user groups in Europe, North America, Australasia and Japan as well as IBM clients. It is a multilingual survey with four iPods as prizes for Web voting.

All attendees of the annual COMMON Europe Congress in Krakow, Poland, will also rate the concerns during the opening session on June 7. A raffle of 3 iPods will be held to reward participants for their efforts. Like every year, preliminary results will be disclosed during the closing session on June 9.

Academic Concerns Survey

COMMON Europe is proud to announce a first, the launch of its first Top Academic Concerns Survey. It is based on a special set of concerns chosen by the students and staff of the Austrian and Polish Academic Initiative institutions. This year's COMMON Europe annual Congress (CEC) will also be a Power Academy as it is jointly held with the prestigious AGH University of Science and Technology of Krakow, Poland. Like its sister project, the survey is available on the COMMON Europe web site www.comeur.org and will have its own incentives for web and "on the spot" voting. We are pleased to announce that this CEC will be free to a big but limited number of students. For more information on the Top Academic Concerns 2009 please contact Christoph Cuscoleca, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or Grzegorz Siwiec, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

About COMMON Europe Congress (CEC)

The COMMON Europe Congress, being held this year from June 6--9 in the historic city of Krakow, Poland, is the Power System/System i educational event in Europe. This Power Academy will have five parallel streams covering the Power Systems infrastructure, IBM i 6.1, AIX, and Linux, security, database management and application development. For more information, visit www.comeur.org or contact Ray Titcombe, CE technical director, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or Grzegorz Siwiec, CE marketing director, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

For more information on "Top Concerns" please contact Ranga (Shrirang U.) Deshpande, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

About COMMON Europe (CE)

COMMON Europe, an association of IBM computer users, is an umbrella organization of national IBM user associations, representing most European countries. Its aims are "boost peer networking, provide advanced education and training, spearhead IBM strategy, accelerate an ongoing open dialogue with IBM and influence the setting of international standards". It is a non-profit association of companies, organizations and individuals, who are involved in IT solutions, using IBM mid-range architecture and solutions. For more information, please visit www.comeur.org or contact Olga Miralles i Mulleras, CE President, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..