Out of 400 applicants, only 30 were selected. I am talking about up and coming IT companies, startups for the most, who were nominated to participate to the 2008 Morgan Stanley CTO Summit (you need to be nominated, not everyone can send their file). Hosted by Jonathan Saxe, Morgan Stanley’s Global Chief Technical Officer and Managing Director, this 2 day conference and think tank took place in San Francisco this week.

Talend was one of the few selected. I am proud that our track record, combined with the traction that open source data integration is getting, made the Global CTO of Morgan Stanley decide that he needed to invite us - and even to host us at his table for the opening dinner!

The roaster was impressive. Opening keynote from Jonathan Saxe, presentations by leading investment funds partners, and technology directions. Then we split into smaller groups, and this was essentially pitching time: each of the selected vendors got to present to a panel that would recreate the ecosystem of a large investment firm: senior IT executives, mission critical business users, and investment firm partners.

Among participating Morgan Stanley IT: Executive Director IT, Managing Director IT Applications Programming Group, Global Head of IT Security, Managing Director IT Infrastructure, Executive Director Technology Business Development, CTO Investment Banking Technology, Executive Director Enterprise Application Infrastructure, etc.

Among participating VCs: Sequoia, CCGV, Matric, Accel, Northbridge…

Among participating vendors: Centrify, Enomaly, Jive, KickFire, Lumingent, SOA Software, Xignite…

Why is Morgan Stanley running this event? A mix of reasons. First, they are a technology-heavy firm, and they want to remain on the edge of innovation for their clients. So they need to identify the technologies that will allow them to do this. Second, they are a huge investment fund, and also a “fund of funds” (most of their investments go into other investment funds who manage direct investments). This Summit is a great opportunity for them to identify startups that will need funding at some point.

And why do vendors attend? For the same reasons. A unique opportunity to network with senior IT executives from one of the largest financial institutions in the world, understand their pains, and detect business opportunities. The chance to meet with managing partners of most leading VC firms.

Everybody wins! (except the proprietary vendors we’re now going to displace at Morgan Stanley).

Bertrand