Dear JAMF Nation,
I am pleased to announce that on April 6, 2016, the registration site will launch for the 2016 JAMF Nation User Conference (JNUC). For the sixth consecutive year, we will host JNUC at the historic Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, Minnesota on October 18-20, 2016.
Prior to the registration site opening and issuing our public press release, I wanted to first write a personal message to you, JAMF Nation, informing you of several changes to this year’s event — and more importantly, the reasons why.
Back in 2010, JAMF founders, Zach Halmstad and Chip Pearson, had a vision to bring together a community of JAMF customers for the sole purpose of connecting with and learning from each other. Zach and Chip did not want a ‘marketing event.’ They wanted a gathering for JAMF customers, where the content came from JAMF customers. For those of you who have attended frequently, you know JNUC has become a lot like a reunion, where friends gather to hear stories — some related to our profession, and some not. In short, JAMF Nation has truly become a community.
As JAMF's new CEO, the 2015 JNUC was my very first. I never experienced the intimate gathering of only 100 people back in 2010. I have only known JNUC as the largest gathering of Apple administrators in the world, with more than 1,000 attendees last year. Despite it’s size, it still had a community appeal.
For those who joined us last year, you had an opportunity to meet several new members of the JAMF leadership team, connect with over one hundred new JAMF team members, and witness many informative presentations from JAMF Nation members, including the amazing IBM story of 30,000 Macs deployed in less than four months (having now grown to over 50,000 Macs, as documented in this IBM paper.
During JNUC 2015, you also witnessed first hand, after six years, we have now hit capacity in our current venue at the Guthrie Theatre. Yet JAMF is adding more than two thousand new customers every year. To accommodate this growth, and your desire for even more educational sessions, JNUC requires additional space — which of course requires more investment. The unfortunate reality is that all investments in the JNUC event comes directly out of JAMF’s capacity to invest in your product and support. Thus, we are at a crossroads.
After months of consideration, JAMF has decided it is necessary to share the cost of JNUC with its attendees in order to improve the quality and scope while protecting investment into your product. To be clear, JAMF has no intention of profiting from JNUC. We are not morphing it into a marketing event. Our intent is only to charge enough to help cover the costs of hosting this large gathering. This year’s JNUC prices will encourage early registration, allowing JAMF to plan the best possible event for attendees. The prices will be as follows, based on registration deadlines:
- $499 if registered before May 4th
- $599 if registered between May 5th and July 12th
- $799 if registered between July 13th and October 11th
- $999 for those registering after October 11th
JAMF’s desire has always been to keep attendee cost as low as possible. At $499 for early registrants, it continues to be one of the most affordable conferences in the industry. However, we understand that, for over half a decade, it has been one of the very few free technology events. The hard truth is that, with its size and scope, continuing to provide a free event has proven an immense challenge. That challenge is exacerbated when combined with JAMF’s desire to maximize our spending on your product development and support.
When I joined JAMF nearly one year ago, the first improvement I wanted to make was to maximize our investment in product development. In fact, at JNUC 2015, I promised you that JAMF would grow its research and development organization by 60% year-over-year by March 2016. Now that March 2016 has come and gone, I am pleased to report that we have surpassed this goal and grown our product development by 100% since the same time last year.
The result of this growth will be directed toward more new product capabilities delivered with higher levels of quality in 2016 than any year in JAMF history. I can tell you now that in 2016, JAMF will deliver substantial improvements in cloud computing, enterprise integration, scalability and performance, patch management, classroom and school management, usability — for both IT admins and self-service users, and of course, support for the latest Apple releases on the day they become generally available. And you will be able to see and touch all of this new functionality at JNUC 2016.
Proof of our increased product development is already visible with the release of Casper Suite 9.9 on March 31st. As you know, Apple recently announced iOS 9.3, which includes many new features like Managed Home Screen Layout and Managed Lost Mode, as well as substantial functionality to serve the education market like Classroom app and Shared iPad. I am pleased to tell you, with Casper Suite 9.9, JAMF is first in the market to support all of this new functionality, as well as adding iOS and OS X capabilities independent of iOS 9.3. Casper Suite 9.9 represents the first of several feature-packed releases we have planned for 2016, which is possible because of our increased investment in research and development.
With all of this development, rest assured, I still stand firm in the commitment I made to you at last year’s JNUC: At JAMF, quality is more important than time. To support this commitment, our development processes have been bolstered to make sure that products are truly ready when we make them available to you.
Now, back to the topic of JNUC. Last year, I enjoyed meeting and speaking with many of you. In each discussion, I asked, “What about JNUC is valuable to you?” Predominately, you told me relationships and content from customers. However, you also told me you’d like more content from JAMF. You wanted topics to go deeper. Some of you long-time Casper Suite experts felt you had seen everything, and wanted a deeper technical understanding and visibility not only into what Casper Suite does, but what it will do in the future.
Considering this, we are committed to provide you greater information, training, and value than ever before. At JNUC 2016, in addition to customer presentations, JAMF employees will offer tracks that provide education on:
- All new functionality offered in 2016
- All functionality in planning and development for 2017
- Deep dive technical sessions delivered by JAMF’s team of experts
In addition, JAMF will offer shuttle services to visit our new headquarters in Minneapolis and participate in our new usability lab — where you will have an opportunity to direct the user experience for future product. And we will offer simultaneous Casper Suite certification courses through JAMF Education Services, giving course attendees the opportunity to attend JNUC keynotes and social events at no cost. Our registration site will contain details regarding all of these plans. In short, JNUC 2016 will be the best single week of Casper Suite training available anywhere.
We understand the JNUC fee may cause some past participants to miss the 2016 event. We deeply regret this. While the size and scope for JNUC may cause a short-term logistics problem, we are excited about turning the challenge into an opportunity to improve your experience. Our JAMF team plans to over-deliver on the promise of content and experience I'm making in this post. In addition, we will offer complimentary passes to customers providing presentations at JAMF. This incentive will attract case studies on the best and most innovative Casper Suite implementations in the world.
Regardless of whether JNUC is free or for fee, only a small subset of JAMF Nation is able to attend each year. At JAMF, our first investment priority is development and support of product that impacts 100% of JAMF Nation. With the new changes, we will be able to grow JNUC in the future without limitation and deliver you the best event and product experience possible.
In closing, for those able to attend JNUC 2016, my hope and plan is that you'll say, other than purchasing Casper Suite, it was the best JAMF investment you ever made.
Thank you,
Dean
