Mr. Li, as Secretary of the IPC was pleased to say that the Congress was very successful with 2,067 attendees taking part in the 8 conferences and related events. He could only provide a preliminary report as many issues and data related to the Congress have to be analyzed. The auditing process will be carried out during a period of two months and the finalized accounts will be available in December.

The preliminary figures show that the number of Chinese and the number of international participants are roughly equal. The registrations for the 8 conferences were as follows:

49 % of all Congress participants were from China. There were international participants from over 70 countries with significant attendance from Japan (8%), USA (6%), Germany (3%), Australia (2%), Norway (2%), Finland (2%), UK (2%), Italy (2%), France (2%) and the rest of the World (22%).

75% registered by fax, 15% online and 10% by ordinary mail. The reason for the low online registration was that it took longer than expected to set-up the agreement with the Bank of China.

Mr. Brunnstein wished to know about the second SEC conference and Mr. Li clarified that this was an auxiliary event.

The President requested Mr. Li to convey IFIP’s thanks to the Congress IPC and OC for their hard work in making the 16^th IFIP Congress a big success and reminded that a Final Congress report will have to be prepared for Council and GA.

Messrs. Wibe and Boynton informed GA that after a creative process it was decided that the 17^th Congress will have the title "Information Technology for our Times: Ideas, Research and Applications in an Inclusive World". The program will develop around Theory/Technology, Education and Industry/Business in close cooperation with IFIP’s TCs. A meeting of the IPC is scheduled for 16-17 October 2000 in Montreal and all participating TCs will be invited to send a representative.

Mr. Rosenfeld opined that GA should know what is going on with the Congress as IFIP has the primary responsibility for the Program. Mr. Neumann felt that this GA can endorse the process of preparations but it would not be feasible for GA to make decisions now with regard to the content. Mr. Boynton responded that some of the fields are changing so quickly that it would be necessary to keep the program open for the time being. If any TCs feel at a later stage that something is wrong then they could warn the President. Both the IPC and the OC Chairs report to the President.

In order to have a stronger feedback to GA with regard to future Congress programs
Mr. Brunnstein suggested that a first analysis of the WCC 2004 program is carried out during GA 2001 and requested that this enters the Minutes as a decision. Mr. Lee disagreed as he felt that such subordination will undermine the role of the IPC and Mr. Berleur added that he would not be able to commit to future programs at a stage when his commitments to WCC 2002 are in progress.

Mr. Boynton informed GA that the key dates are set for January 2001 (Call for Papers and Contributions), 31 October 2001 (deadline for submission of papers) and August 25 – 30, 2002 as the dates of the 17^th IFIP Congress.

Based on a conservative attendance figure of 1,300 and 195 free registrations the proposed early registration fee was EUR 625 and regular registration was set at EUR 735. The projected total revenue was EUR 1,487 K, out of which 22% would be expected from sponsorship and 6% from the Exhibition. The total projected expenses were EUR 1,292 K, out of which 10% for IPC related expenses, 6% for the Secretariat and 84% for organization (out of which 29% for promotion, 37% for local arrangements and 17% for "Other" items).

GA felt that the deadline for paper submissions was too early.

[A WCC 2002 PowerPoint presentation to GA is available at http://www.ifip.or.at/minutes/beijing2000.htm ]

Messrs. von Solms and Aspinall (South Africa), Messrs. Laprie and Costes (France) and
Mr. Gottlieb and Mrs. Cohen (Israel) made excellent PowerPoint and video presentations in support of their proposals [The details are contained in the bidding documents].

Based on these presentations the following financial summary table was drawn for GA to consider:

Mr. Bollerslev reported that the President and the Executive Director were involved in the site inspection visits in June and July. The objectives were to review the facilities and conditions for hosting an IFIP Congress in the respective countries and to assess the academic, industrial and governmental support that an IFIP Congress can hope to receive.

Israel: The Convention Center in Jerusalem meets all requirements for hosting major international events. There are sufficient hotels within close proximity. Hostels and cheaper accommodation are available to budget participants and students upon request. Jerusalem is about 45 km from Ben Gurion international airport. Israel offers a variety of pre and post conference tours. IPA, the IFIP member, is currently experiencing an upward trend in its membership and operations. At a meeting with the IPA President, the IFIP representatives were assured of IPA's commitment in making the Congress a successful event if GA decided to select Jerusalem as the site of IFIP Congress 2004. IPA's bid is developed along the lines of the invitation presented during GA 1998 in Budapest. Israeli and El Al officials are dedicated to ensure serious security measures. The issue of visas for all bona fide participants was raised and there are assurances that an official letter of guarantee will be provided.

South Africa: Meetings were held with two regional Ministers (Economic Affairs and Tourism and Finance and Development Planning) who reassured the IFIP representatives that there is a strong commitment of the regional and central governments to the South African bid. Two particular issues were discussed - safety and the completion of the Cape Town Convention Center. The regional government is undertaking serious measures to reduce crime. The Cape Town Convention Center is planned as an impressive modern conference facility, which will be ready and in full operation by mid 2003. Ambitious construction activities will soon begin to transform the whole Waterfront area (where the Conference Center will be located) into an elegant location and there are sound guarantees that the project will be in exploitation by mid 2003. There are many hotels in immediate proximity to meet the requirements of all conference participants. The airport is very close and there are no problems with international flight connections and travel. The Western Cape region and South Africa provide excellent opportunities for tourism and for pre and post conference tours. The IFIP representatives held meetings with the CSSA President, the CSSA GA representative, other representatives of CSSA and of the two professional organizers, SBS and Global Conferences. South Africa's invitation offers a possibility for future involvement of other African countries and this should certainly be considered.

France: Toulouse is certainly attractive as it is the second largest university city in France with a wide network of IT research institutions and a strong regional industry, crowned by "Airbus Industrie". The region offers a variety of possibilities for pre and post conference tours and individual tourism. The recently constructed modern Convention Center was visited. It provides excellent facilities for the organization of an IFIP Congress. There are many hotels and catering options in immediate proximity. It takes about 20 minutes from the airport to reach the hotels and the conference center. There are convenient international flight connections via Paris and other major European gateways. The IFIP representatives met with representatives of business and research. Many of them are involved in IFIP and its activities and are prepared to assist the organization of Congress 2004 if GA chooses Toulouse. The IFIP representatives met the Deputy Mayor for international relations, the Director of the Office for Tourism and a Member of Parliament and were assured of the local and regional support.

Mr. Bollerslev concluded that the site inspection team has no hesitations that all three societies can organize a successful IFIP Congress and have prepared very attractive invitation packages for GA to consider. There were no issues to report that might create major infrastructure problems. The three cities - Jerusalem, Cape Town and Toulouse - offer unique possibilities for professional contacts and tourism.

Voting

The President thanked the representatives of the 3 societies for their invitations and congratulated Mr. Gottlieb. Mr. Gottlieb was grateful to GA for supporting the Israeli invitation and said IPA was enthusiastic to work for a successful IFIP Congress 2004 in Jerusalem.

General Assembly APPLAUDED.

The TA Chair drew attention to his report and said Mr. G. Boynton was invited to brief TA on WCC 2002 developments. There was an exchange of ideas regarding the Program and the involvement of TCs. Cooperative efforts will be made among TCs to develop program tracks. The Chairs of TC sponsored conferences were invited to attend an IPC meeting in Montreal on 16 and 17 October.

Mr. Aiken reported that the CCI Chair had presented CCI initiatives to TA. CCI aims to encourage participation of young researchers, industrial and governmental representatives in IFIP’s TCs and WGs. The TCs had welcomed suggestions for participants in WG conferences as the best means to involve new persons in WG activities. A discussion on a new approval process for WG members had resulted in agreement that the current procedure of having new WG members approved by the TC is best. The TC Chairs had agreed that IFIP involvement in standardization work could be an important initiative and had requested CCI to develop a specific proposal to which they could react.

The TA Chair said that Mr. Miura had invited Dr. T. Kamae from IPSJ to present initial ideas regarding an initiative for the establishment of a new specialist group on "Entertainment Computing". There was strong support for this initiative and the CCI was invited to pursue the establishment of such a group in cooperation with the TC Chairs. One proposed way to proceed was to organize an international conference in this area with CCI involvement.

Mr. Aiken drew GA’s attention to the following issues related to IFIP’s Technical Committees:

TC1: TA congratulated TC 1 for the successful TCS conference in Japan.

TC2: A new TC2 Chair, Dr. Armando Haeberer (AR), was unanimously elected by the TC and will enter office on 1 January 2001. TA had approved a new name for WG2.4 "Software Implementation Technology" and agreed to the establishment of WG2.10 on Software Architecture.

TC3: TA noted TC 3’s request for the support of other TCs in promoting and participating in WCCE 2001 in Copenhagen.

TC5: TA urged TC5 to continue to work on a merger of WG5.2 and 5.3.

TC6: TA approved new names for WG6.1 "Architectures and Protocols for Distributed Systems", WG 6.2 "Network and Internetwork Architectures", WG 6.4 "Internet Applications Engineering" and WG 6.6 "Management of Networks and Distributed Systems" and agreed to the suggested restructuring of WGs 6.1, 6.2, 6.4, 6.6, 6.7, 6.8 and 6.10. The TC Chair will revise the Aims and Scopes of these WGs and will resubmit them to TA for final approval.

TA had provisionally agreed to the establishment of a new WG 6.11 on "Electronic Commerce – Communication Systems". A number of suggestions were made for the rewording of its Aims and Scope. It was agreed that the name and text should make it clear that the WG focuses on the communication aspects of Electronic Commerce. TC6 was encouraged to provide a revised proposal to TA.

TC7: TA approved TC7’s recommendation to discontinue its WGs on "Discrete Event Systems" and "Chaos and Fractals". The Chair is requested to inform the WG members
of this decision.

TC8: TA approved the recommendation of TC8 to discontinue WG8.7 due to inactivity. The TC Chair will inform the WG members of this decision. A change of title, aims and scope of WGs 8.3 and 8.4 was envisaged.

TC9: TA approved the revised Aims and Scope of WG9.5 "Applications and Social Implications of Virtual Worlds".

TA approved a TC9/TC11 proposal to create a provisional joint working group, 9.6/11.7 on "Information Technology: Misuse and the Law" under the administrative responsibility of TC9. Its Aims and Scope will have to be approved by TA. TA endorsed the initiative for a joint working conference in Bratislava (June 2001) as a first step in strengthening this cooperation.

TC10: TA approved the discontinuation of WGs 10.6 and 10.7 due to lack of activity and overlap with existing activities. The TC Chair will inform the WG members of this decision and will encourage 10.7 members to join 10.5.

TC11: TA agreed to a proposal by TC11 to circulate a statement on "Information Security Professionals" to all TCs for comments and TA endorsement.

TC12: TA applauded the Chairman’s ongoing efforts to strengthen this TC.

TC13: TA noted the efforts in support of the organization of INTERACT 2001 in Tokyo,
July 9-13, 2001.

Mr. Aiken informed of the TC 6 – TC 8 – TC 11 initiative for a new Electronic Commerce conference series. The first conference will convene in October 2001 in Zurich. Other TCs were invited to take part in future conferences.

The TA Chair concluded his report by saying that GA should consider the concept of a "horizontal TC" as new fields such as Electronic Commerce emerge and IFIP needs to be proactive. Such fields cut across the activities of several TCs and the concept of a transversal organizational structure might adequately serve the rapid evolution of these areas.

Mr. Brunnstein opined that IFIP is hierarchically structured and agreed that a transversal new structure will allow more cooperation between TCs.

Mr. Glasson reported on behalf of Mr. Samways, the TC Forum Moderator who had to leave earlier. He said that the TC Chairs had a series of informal consultations to discuss internal TC items and to meet with the Chairs and members of IFIP’s Standing Committees and in particular with PC, MC, AMB, DCSC, CCI and FC.

One matter of particular concern was the schedule of future Council and GA meetings.
Mr. Glasson said that the TC Forum had considered a proposal for a new format. The President reminded that the current schedule was sent as a draft to all TC Chairs to comment before it was formally announced. Mr. Bollerslev further recalled that the TC Forum is an informal body for consultations between TC Chairs. With these two comments he invited Mr. Glasson to assist the Secretary in the preparation of the next draft schedule for Council and GA.

Mr. Aiken wished to put on record his thanks to Mr. Samways as the Moderator of the TC Forum during the last year. He welcomed Mr. B. Neumann as the next Moderator until GA 2001.

The attending TC Chairs made brief presentations of their reports. The full reports, including participation statistics, are available at http://www.ifip.or.at/minutes/beijing2000.htm

Regularly updated directory information for all IFIP Technical Committees and Working Groups is available at http://www.ifip.or.at/bulletin/bulltcs/b_tcs.htm

The locations of the TC web sites are:

Web site: http://www.dis.uniroma1.it/~ifip-tc1/

Web site: http://wwwedu.ge.ch/cptic/prospective/projets/ifip/

Web site: http://www.usc.edu/schools/business/atisp/AI/TC-12/

Web site: http://www.ifip-hci.org

General Assembly took note of the submitted reports.

General Assembly noted that A. Haeberer (Argentina) was elected as the next TC 2 Chair as of
1 January 2001 and APPLAUDED the current TC 2 Chair, Mr. Kurki-Suonio, for all his hard work during a period of 2 terms.

Mr. Miura referred to his report and said that IT is developing very rapidly and it is important for people from academia, industry and government related organizations to collaborate within IFIP in order to bring a synergetic effect. CCI was established to assist such interactions.

CCI had organized a survey on IFIP demographics. 38 working groups and 5 technical committees had participated and based on their responses the composition of the IFIP WG and TC membership is as follows:

The CCI objective is to increase the share of Industry in IFIP. So as to attract representatives from Industry CCI plans a session related to Industry at WCC 2002. Topics, such as IT Collaboration between Academia and Industry in the 21^st Century and Digital Appliances would be considered for possible inclusion in the Congress.

Mr. Miura stressed that Standardization activities are very important as IT systems are global and open. Standardization is important to Industry and IFIP's role in this area could be that of an Advisor, a Mediator and a Reviewer.

The CCI Chair suggested that it might be valuable if IFIP reviews it current procedures for approving WG membership in order to allow young researchers and people from industry to quickly join as members. IFIP should consider new TC and WG activities that attract Industry such as IT and Digital appliances, environment issues and other.

A proposal for a new activity on "Entertainment Computing" was considered by TA and had received support from the TC Chairs.

In view of TA's support to this initiative Messrs. Miura and Aiken moved that GA establish a Task Force on Entertainment Computing. The TF would initially operate within the mandate of the Committee for Cooperation with Industry (CCI) with the responsibility to explore and develop Entertainment Computing within IFIP as a matter of high priority. It would be based on transversal organization allowing active input from interested TCs and WGs. The way forward would be to organize an international workshop.

General Assembly AGREED to establish a Task Force on Entertainment Computing.

Mr. Nedkov drew attention to the following statistics for IFIP sponsored events:

The activity levels in 1999 and 2000 were high.

Mr. Rosenfeld would have liked to see a comparison with the 1999 figures at the same time last year and Mr. Nedkov responded that the 1999 status was reported in the GA 99 Minutes. At the same time last year there were 61 registered events for 1999. In 19 events IFIP’s role was that of a full sponsor, in 25 events IFIP was a main sponsor, in 16 events IFIP was a co-sponsor and in 1 event IFIP was a joint sponsor.

Mrs. Hayden reported that the number of events in which IFIP’s role is that of a Main or Full sponsor has increased. This was achieved with a lot of work: from the first contact with conference organizers until the closure of the conference files. After Council 2000, in addition to her duties as Event Facilitator Mrs. Hayden had to take over the duties of the part-time assistant. Fortunately, this did not have a negative impact on the event management process. It would be greatly appreciated if TC and WG Chairs will continue to support the Secretariat's efforts to facilitate the organization of IFIP’s well-established events.

Mr. Glasson was pleased to say that the TC Chairs were happy with the services of the IFIP Secretariat in monitoring and facilitating the organization of conferences.

Mr. Ralston drew attention to his report and said that the TC Chairs had somewhat poorly received the process of the PC meeting. In future, there needs to be better advance preparations. With regard to the WCC 2000 proceedings it was agreed that the TC Chairs, Kluwer and the PC Secretary would explore the possibility of publishing edited volumes of the various conferences.

The PC Chair informed that it had been agreed with Kluwer to prepare a price grid for conference bulk sales between 40 and 74 copies. Such publications are to be considered as exceptions to the current agreement and the idea is to work out a formula, which includes a scaled down royalty to IFIP. Marketing of IFIP publications was considered and the PC, in cooperation with Kluwer, will produce a document outlining the benefits and the value of publishing in the IFIP Series. TCs were requested to inform Kluwer of major events at which they recommend Kluwer to set up stands. Kluwer will develop an electronic button for member societies to use on their web sites so as to link directly to the IFIP catalogue.

Mr. Ralston and Mrs. Lambert reported that the year 2000 was off to a strong start with 12 new titles published by Kluwer as of June 30. The publication process seems to be going smoothly and the first half of 2000 has shown continued growth for the IFIP book series. By comparison, only 8 new IFIP books were published in the first half of 1999. Sales revenues for IFIP titles totaled $297,686 for the first half of 2000, which represented an increase of 16.15% over sales of $256,290 for the first half of 1999. Sales of the 12 front list titles (published since January 1, 2000) accounted for $141,577 of total revenues for the first half of 2000, and sales of 163 back list titles (published prior to January 1, 2000) accounted for $156,109 of total revenues. Royalties due IFIP totaled $46,693 for the first half of 2000. This represented an increase of 6.53% over royalties of $43,830 for the first 6 months of 1999.

10 more manuscripts have gone into production for publication in the second half of 2000 and another 2 more outstanding manuscripts are expected, thus bringing the number of new IFIP titles this year to 24. The relatively low number of projected titles in 2000 is due, in large part, to the fact that the Chinese hosts published 7 of the 8 World Computer Congress proceedings volumes. Contracts were issued for 6 volumes to be published in 2001 and preliminary contacts were made for another 10-12 volumes. Kluwer hopes to receive 15 more proposals in the next few months so as to reach a minimum of 30 IFIP proceedings volumes in 2001.

The "IFIP Bookshelf" with descriptions of IFIP titles going back to 1997 was mailed to the entire IFIP community. New IFIP titles are included in Kluwer’s monthly New Title Bulletin and in quarterly discipline-specific brochures, which are mailed to over 7000 institutional librarians around the world. Kluwer advertises IFIP books in niche-specific brochures, as well as at hundreds of conferences around the world. Every new IFIP title is listed on the Kluwer web site and advertised via the Kluwer ALERT service for electronic announcements.

TC Chairs are encouraged to advise conference organizers and volume editors to contact Kluwer as early in the conference planning process as possible, and to consult the "Guidelines for Editors of IFIP Conference Proceedings" as well as the "Timeline for the Publication Process" posted on the web.

Mrs. Lambert concluded her report by saying that a price elasticity experiment was carried out. This year's Database Security volume was published in May 2000 and priced at $ US 99.50. While it will be over a year before the full measure of the experiment will be observed, 88 copies were sold in less than 3 months. The previous year’s volume was published in April 1999 with a list price of $160.00 and has sold 113 copies to date.

Mr. Grafendorfer was keen to have the performance of the Database Security sales reported during the forthcoming Council and GA meetings. Mr. Casaca encouraged Kluwer to consider the production of CD Masters. TC 6 was interested to explore online publications.

Mr. Reis wished to know what is the Library share in all sales and Mrs. Lambert responded that it was 68%. Mr. Srinivasan was of the opinion that book prices were very high and wondered whether paperbacks would be cheaper. Mrs. Lambert said the cost difference is insignificant and recalled that Kluwer had suggested that IFIP books that are more than 3 years old can be offered to societies in developing countries at bulk prices. Mr. Khakhar felt that such an offer might not be well received by these societies. Mr. Nedkov informed that Elsevier had arrangements for free distribution of out-of-print books to developing countries with the postage costs paid by IFIP.

Mr. Rosenfeld inquired about the subscriptions for the EIT Journal and Mrs. Lambert responded that they are few but it is hoped that with the WCCE 2001 in Copenhagen subscriptions will increase substantially.

Mr. Ralston ended his report by pointing out that the PC had not had enough time to fully consider the issue of Digital Libraries. He was of the opinion that this particular activity needs to be treated as a project with a project director who would have the responsibility to submit to EB for approval a scope and plan for implementation. Mr. Brunnstein protested that as a member of PC he was never involved in any discussion concerning Digital Libraries and that such an important issue is handled so lightly.