| Wednesday, September 17 |
| 11:00 am–12:00 pm |
Conference Sessions
SaaS: Best Practices and PitfallsSoftware-as-a-Service applications are often cheaper, more reliable and better performing than their in-house alternatives. Many SaaS firms started as Application Service Providers relegated to niche applications like payroll, and sold to small businesses unable to run their own infrastructure. Today, big business depends on heavyweights like Salesforce.com, ADP, Taleo, RightNow and Netsuite for mission-critical parts of their business. But embracing SaaS can be a challenge. IT managers are giving up control and visibility. There may be privacy and regulatory issues. Reporting and enforcing service levels is difficult and different. Using real-world examples from some of the largest SaaS firms in operation today this session looks at the best practices - and common pitfalls- of moving significant business processes to a SaaS model. Speaker - Alistair Croll, Principal Analyst, BitCurrent Alistair is a senior analyst at research firm Bitcurrent, covering emerging web technologies, networking, and online applications. Prior to Bitcurrent, Alistair co-founded Coradiant, a leader in online user monitoring, as well as research firm Networkshop. He has held product management positions with 3Com Corporation, Primary Access, and Eicon Technology. Alistair contributes to industry events such as Interop and Web2Expo, and writes for a variety of online publications including GigaOm. He is the author of numerous articles on Internet performance and security, and co-author of Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Applications from Prentice-Hall.
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| 2:45 pm–3:45 pm |
Conference Sessions
Compliance, Regulation and On-Demand ApplicationsModern business is heavily regulated, from hiring and staffing guidelines to compliance to financial tracking. An emerging benefit of SaaS models is that the SaaS provider has already passed the audit. This session looks at compliance and regulation in the context of on-demand applications, revealing some of the benefits - and risks - of outsourcing business processes to a SaaS provider. Speaker - Martin Dubois, Chief Counsel, Taleo
| | Thursday, September 18 |
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| 10:15 am–11:15 am |
Conference Sessions
SMB SaaS: Levelling the Playing FieldSaaS puts small startups on the same footing as their larger competitors. At first, so-called "small business" SaaS firms found that enterprise teams were their early adopters. But a new wave of simple, easy-to-use SaaS tools tied into the way smaller companies do business is changing this. This panel looks at the next generation of SaaS for SMB and how it is undermining the IT advantage of larger firms. Moderator - Jeff Kaplan, Managing Director, THINKstrategies, Inc. Jeff Kaplan is the Founder and Managing Director of THINKstrategies (www.thinkstrategies.com), a strategic consulting firm that helps IT enterprise decision-makers with their sourcing strategies; solution providers with their marketing strategies; and venture firms with their investment strategies. Kaplan is also the founder of the Managed Service Showplace® (www.msp-showplace.com or www.thinkmsp.com) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Showplace® (www.saas-showplace.com or www.thinksaas.com) free, online directories. THINKstrategies' online directories provide an easy-to-use listing of SaaS solutions by application and MSPs by service category, and extensive information and insight about industry best practices to help organizations fully leverage the growing array of SaaS solutions and managed services. Prior to forming THINKstrategies, Jeff served as Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at InterOPS Management Solutions, an Internet Operations Management Services Provider. Before joining InterOPS, Jeff was Director of Strategic Marketing at International Network Services (INS) and subsequently Lucent Technologies, which acquired INS. Jeff also spent thirteen (13) years as a leading industry analyst at IDC, Dataquest and META Group. Jeff is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and contributing columnist for BusinessWeek, Mass High Tech Journal, Financial Times of London, NetworkWorld, Business Communications Review, ComputerWorld, InfoWorld, InformationWeek, Managing Automation, the Web Hosting Industry Review and Services News on topics ranging from utility computing, managed services, outsourcing strategies, IT operations and service level management (SLM).
Speaker - Alastair Mitchell, CEO, Huddle.net Since graduating with MSc in Naval Engineering from Southampton University, where he learnt how to build boats and submarines, Alastair has spent the last 10 years in the online services industry. During early years, he helped to build the first online market place for the global food commodities market, which provided marketing, auction and logistics capabilities to companies across Europe, Africa & the Far East. There he also became a professionally trained tea taster. Alastair then moved to dunnhumby, where he led the growth of its web-based marketing intelligence product to £20m in three years. Alastair joined dunnhumby's Strategic Management Board in 2005 to head up the group's Shopping Experience practice, a $60m+ business globally. Alastair's grandfather was the inspiration behind starting his own dot-com, Huddle.net. To celebrate this, Huddle's holding company is named after one of grandfather's inventions - Ninian, the biggest ever concrete platform ever built. When not running the company, Alastair enjoys skiing, snowboarding, hiking, diving and driving. The latter has become an infrequent affair as Alastair passionately believes in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Speaker - Bill Lucchini, VP and GM , Intuit Quickbase Bill Lucchini is Vice President and General Manager of Intuit QuickBase, a platform that allows users to select and customize their own SaaS applications. Since assuming his current role in January 2007, QuickBase usage has grown to a quarter million users, including more than half of the Fortune 100. Under his leadership, QuickBase successfully launched the Enterprise Edition of QuickBase, designed for deployment across thousands of employees, partners and vendors as well as the QuickBase Developer Program, a new Platform-as-a-Service that enables developers to create rich Internet applications that integrate with Intuit QuickBooks. Before joining QuickBase, he served as vice president and general manager of Intuit's Mid Market Group, where he drove QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions product to become the fastest-selling mid-market accounting product in the U.S.
Speaker - George Symons, CEO, Yosemite Technologies George Symons serves as CEO of Yosemite Technologies. Mr. Symons brings broad experience in storage software development, business development and building global business to the role. As CEO, Mr. Symons is responsible for all global operations including sales, marketing, finance, professional services, product development and business development. Mr. Symons joined Yosemite from EMC, where he served as Chief Technology Officer for Information Management, responsible for defining EMC's product and technical strategy. He also played key roles in the integration of Legato enterprise backup and recovery products and Documentum content management software into EMC. Prior to EMC, Mr. Symons held positions within Legato including CTO, Vice President of Product Management and Marketing, and Vice President of Development and Product Management. He was involved in the integration of products from SCH Technologies and OTG into Legato's product line, and later in the acquisition of Legato by EMC. Prior to that he was Vice President of Engineering at FullTime Software, VP of Marketing at Software Research and PROCASE Corporation, and also held product marketing and product management positions at Sun Microsystems. Symons has B.A. degrees in Computer Science and Management Science from University of California, San Diego, and an M.B.A from University of California, Los Angeles.
Speaker - Mike McDerment, CEO (Co-founder)- Freshbooks, Freshbooks Co-founder and CEO of FreshBooks, Mike and his team at FreshBooks are putting the "Service" back in "Software as a Service". An entrepreneur with two successful start-ups to his name, Mike talks faster than he writes and can deftly juggle and keep his eye on hundreds of balls at one time. Mike is a founder of the mesh conference, lecturer at Humber College and a frequent speaker at Internet conferences. See what Mike's up to by reading his blog or catching his latest Twitter updates. Mike loves his work, and would rather be outdoors than inside.
Speaker - Stephen Cho, Director of Product Management, Google As Director of Product Management for Google Apps and Partner Products, Stephen Cho is responsible for providing Google's consumer products, especially Google Apps (Gmail, Calendar, Talk, Docs, Start Page, Sites, ...) and Search, to partners around the world (telco/ISP, media/portal, social network, mobile, OEM, ...). He was previously Director of Google's Global Online Sales and Operations responsible for millions of Google Apps users and online customers, and earlier was Director of New Content Initiatives, where he was responsible for business development efforts around video/YouTube, Google Maps/Earth, Google Books/Scholar, and new areas, including non-music audio, government content, and news. Prior to Google, Stephen was Senior Director of Product Management and Marketing for Cisco's Application-Oriented Networking Business Unit. He led product management, marketing, business development, sales strategy, and businesss operations and planning for a several hundred person division he helped found in 2003 which provided intelligent application infrastructure (messaging, middleware) in the network. Earlier, he was Senior Director of the Service Provider Solutions Practice in Cisco's Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG), which developed Cisco- and partner-based solutions for major service providers around the world leveraging Cisco's advanced technologies (IP Telephony, contact centers, content delivery networks, ...). And prior to this, he managed the Cisco IBSG Customer Care and e-Commerce solutions organizations. Before joining Cisco, Mr. Cho spent several years in strategy and technology consulting with McKinsey & Company in their Telecommunications, Multimedia, and Electronics Practices and as a leader of their North American Data Networking Initiative. Prior to this, he was with The Boston Consulting Group focusing on technology areas. Mr. Cho was a Fulbright Scholar and holds a Ph.D. from Yale University and a B.A. from Dartmouth College.
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| 11:30 am–12:30 pm |
Conference Sessions
SaaS Chaos: Managing the IslandsEven small organizations have dozens of SaaS relationships. With new portals and tools being launched every day, and more and more employees using them, the SaaS explosion is a recipe for disaster. This session looks at the challenges of running multiple SaaS portals across an organization - from reporting and management to single-sign-on and administration. Moderator - Jeff Kaplan, Managing Director, THINKstrategies, Inc. Jeff Kaplan is the Founder and Managing Director of THINKstrategies (www.thinkstrategies.com), a strategic consulting firm that helps IT enterprise decision-makers with their sourcing strategies; solution providers with their marketing strategies; and venture firms with their investment strategies. Kaplan is also the founder of the Managed Service Showplace® (www.msp-showplace.com or www.thinkmsp.com) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Showplace® (www.saas-showplace.com or www.thinksaas.com) free, online directories. THINKstrategies' online directories provide an easy-to-use listing of SaaS solutions by application and MSPs by service category, and extensive information and insight about industry best practices to help organizations fully leverage the growing array of SaaS solutions and managed services. Prior to forming THINKstrategies, Jeff served as Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at InterOPS Management Solutions, an Internet Operations Management Services Provider. Before joining InterOPS, Jeff was Director of Strategic Marketing at International Network Services (INS) and subsequently Lucent Technologies, which acquired INS. Jeff also spent thirteen (13) years as a leading industry analyst at IDC, Dataquest and META Group. Jeff is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and contributing columnist for BusinessWeek, Mass High Tech Journal, Financial Times of London, NetworkWorld, Business Communications Review, ComputerWorld, InfoWorld, InformationWeek, Managing Automation, the Web Hosting Industry Review and Services News on topics ranging from utility computing, managed services, outsourcing strategies, IT operations and service level management (SLM).
Speaker - Ed Sullivan, President and CEO, Aria Systems Ed Sullivan, Aria Systems' Founder, has been the CEO since the company's inception in 2003. As CEO, Ed offers his vision, innovative ideas and valuable insight to the needs of the marketplace to bear on Aria's strategic direction. Under his leadership, Aria has been established as the market leader in on-demand billing and customer lifecycle solutions and currently supports over 1 million customer accounts in 236 countries. Ed's entrepreneurial spirit and innovative ideas have led him to build several successful companies. Prior to Aria, he was the Founder and President of LaserLink.net, the World's first and largest Virtual Internet Service Provider. LaserLink provided billing and Internet services to over one million end users and operated the Internet Services for several ISP's including American Express, Compaq, Gateway, Amway and IBM. LaserLink was acquired by Covad Communications in March 2000. Ed serves as a Director of NetQOS, an Austin Texas based IT company which offers end to end network management solutions. NetQOS was recently ranked the number one fastest growing technology company in Texas by Deloitte and Touche. He also serves on the advisory board of Covad Communications (DVW) a publicly traded provider of voice and data services. Ed has a BS in Electrical Engineering from Drexel University.
Speaker - Rick Nucci, Co-founder & CTO, Boomi Rick is the Co-founder and CTO of Boomi. His responsibilities include establishing the strategic direction of Boomi's technology, as well as managing the operations of the product development group. He also sits on the company's Board of Directors. Mr. Nucci works directly with customers and partners to help understand and solve their business integration challenges. Boomi has a patent pending for Rick's latest invention around the technology that powers Boomi On Demand, the company's most recent product offering. Prior to forming Boomi Inc., Rick worked for EXE Technologies, a market leading Supply Chain Execution solution provider, in the areas of product development and implementation. It was in this role that Nucci learned first hand of the cost and complexity of integrating disparate applications and business partners. With over 10 years of experience in application and data integration, Rick applies this experience to deliver the company's integration solutions. Rick speaks at universities and business events on topics of Entrepreneurship and Technology. He is a graduate of the Pennsylvania State University with a degree in Business Logistics.
| | Friday, September 19 |
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| 10:15 am–11:15 am |
Conference Sessions
Using SaaS to Make Good Products GreatOn-demand applications can make a good product great. By tying an online software component to a real-world product, innovative companies are giving themselves an edge in the marketplace. This panel looks at the opportunities that software as a service (SaaS) offers makers of traditional products - what works - and what doesn't. Moderator - Alistair Croll, Principal Analyst, BitCurrent Alistair is a senior analyst at research firm Bitcurrent, covering emerging web technologies, networking, and online applications. Prior to Bitcurrent, Alistair co-founded Coradiant, a leader in online user monitoring, as well as research firm Networkshop. He has held product management positions with 3Com Corporation, Primary Access, and Eicon Technology. Alistair contributes to industry events such as Interop and Web2Expo, and writes for a variety of online publications including GigaOm. He is the author of numerous articles on Internet performance and security, and co-author of Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Applications from Prentice-Hall.
Speaker - Gene Golovinsky, VP of R&D, Alertlogic Gene Golovinsky Vice President of Research & Development As Vice President of R&D, Gene Golovinsky brings 20 years of industry expererience to Alert Logic and is responsible for research and development activities. Prior to Alert Logic, Golovinsky served as Director of R&D at BMC Software, where he led an internationally distributed development organization delivering shared development services and infrastructure components to other development organizations within BMC. During his 10+ years with BMC, Golovinsky co-authored several industry standards and patents, and held multiple R&D leadership positions. Prior to BMC he served as a product developer for AVAYA (formerly LANNET Data Communications). Golovinsky holds an MS in Computer Engineering from the Technical University of Communication and Transportation in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Speaker - Rob Donahue, National Sales and Business Development Manager, TomTom TomTom NV is the world's leading vehicle navigation solutions provider. TomTom GPS solutions incorporate MAP SHARE Technology that delivers "Navigation 2.0".
Speaker - Todd Hooper, CEO, Napera Networks Todd Hooper has over fourteen years of experience with networking and security technologies. In 1993, he co-founded Momentum Pty Ltd, an Internet security consultancy acquired by AlphaWest in 1996. From 1998 until 2001 Todd was Vice President of Business Development at WatchGuard Technologies Inc. In 2002, he co-founded Trillium Lane Labs, a developer of audio post-production software acquired by Avid Technology, Inc. in 2005. Most recently, he joined the founders of GraniteEdge Networks in 2004 to provide business development, marketing and product management for a large enterprise security product.
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| 11:30 am–12:30 pm |
Conference Sessions
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