Day One, Tuesday, November 9th

Morning

8:30 - 9:20AM

Opening Remarks and First Morning Keynote Address

The SaaS Ecosystem: The View from Big Blue
 

Dave Mitchell, IBM's Director for Emerging Business, will discuss the emerging SaaS ecosystem and the new partner models being enabled by cloud computing. This keynote will address:

• Established partner models such as cloud application and infrastructure providers
• Emerging partner models including cloud technology providers and aggregators
• Technical challenges and business model considerations for each model
• Examples and best practices in the cloud ecosystem

David Mitchell, IBM

9:15 - 9:55AM

Keynote Address: Key SaaS Metrics from the  The Softletter SaaS Report and Lead Generation and Social Marketing  Reports

Softletter' s SaaS research provides the industry with the standards and benchmarks by which SaaS technology providers measure their business operations and compare their financial and operating metrics agains their peers. Now in its fourth year, The Softletter SaaS Report is the largest repository of hard data and facts on SaaS.

During this presentation, Softletter managing editor Rick Chapman will examine key metrics dealing with:

• SaaS revenue growth and profitability
• SaaS lead generation, management, and conversion to sales
• SaaS and participation in international markets
• SaaS pricing and subscription models
• SaaS resubcription and churn rates
• SaaS/Cloud infrastructure costs and models
• SaaS R&D costs and use of Agile development models
• PaaS choices and evaluations
• SaaS channels
• SaaS social marketing usage and effectiveness with Twitter, Linked In, and Facebook
• SaaS professional and customer service levels and measurements
• SaaS and product and community management

This session will provide the audience with insight into the industry's development and key operations challenges available nowhere else.

Merrill R. (Rick) Chapman, Softletter

9:55 - 10:30AM

MAIN TRACK:

Learning to Speak SaaS: The Move From Enterprise On-Premise Applications to a SaaS Model
 

Software companies who have been successful with on-premise solutions and enterprise models, find themselves in a new land, attempting to speak a new language, as they move to a SaaS model. It’s riddled with pitfalls, including:

• Development teams who will face new concepts that will challenge their thinking.
• Customer driven, iterative release cycles that break all the old release cycles assumptions. 
• SaaS revenue models that will be be decidedly different from the models that made the company successful.

Throttling between the two requires models requires deft hands. Learn how to take control of the process at this presentation.

Mark Dudman, Metratech

SaaS INFRASTRUCTURE TRACK:

The Business Challenge of Multi Tenancy, Single Tenancy, and Everything In Between

There is a lot of debate about multi-tenancy (MT) in SaaS circles these days. But multi-tenancy is not a magic bullet, despite what you may have heard. Implementing your SaaS application with a multi-tenant architecture offers great returns, but what happens if your customers don't want multi-tenancy because of security or privacy concerns and regulations?

This session will discuss:

• Different architectures for implementing multi-tenancy and maintaining flexibility.
• Various degrees of MT.
• Practical alternatives to MT when market requirements make this a necessity.
• Methods of implementing multi-tenancy without breaking the bank or slowing product release

This session is strategic for C Level executives and product managers planning, implementing, or enhancing a SaaS offering. Participants will come away with a clear understanding of how they can leverage multi-tenancy and practical alternatives to offer in response to your customer's requirements.

Mike Ormerod, Progress Software

 10:30 - 10:55AM

  Network Break

 10:55 - 11:30AM

MAIN TRACK:

SaaS Selling Models: Building Compelling Value Models that Maximize Sales Success
 

SaaS may be hot, but your customers' budgets are tight and no one is interested in buying technology for technology's sake in a recession. This session will focus on the critical success factors in selling and marketing Software as a Service (SaaS) to large Enterprises, specifically how to position the unique values of SaaS applications and apply them to your business value propositions and sales models.  We will examine current sales processes and marketing programs, and pricing models for companies that sell SaaS solutions to enterprises.  Attendees will learn how these practices are evolving and hear projections on best practices from market leaders.  Key elements of this highly interactive course will include: SaaS value propositions and pricing models, SaaS sales & marketing approaches, and the role of services in a SaaS model.

Chuck DeVita,
Growth Process Group

SaaS INFRASTRUCTURE TRACK:

Your SaaS Infrastructure Choices: A Comparative Analysis
 

The numbers from the 2010 Softletter SaaS Survey revealed that SaaS companies have many infrastructure choices to make, from highly virtualized (Cloud) server farms to highly managed service systems and many variants in between.

This session analyzes the choices available to your company and provides realistic numbers, checklists, and scenarios that will help you make the best choice for your operations and business peace of mind.

Brian Wolf, BlueLock

 11:35 - 12:05PM

MAIN TRACK:

SaaS ROI and Sales Compensation Metrics Benchmarks and Methodologies
 

If you're going to sell SaaS in a recession, you need to provide powerful ROI numbers and potential cost savings arguments as part of the sales cycle. Because without them, your not going to be closing many sales.

And you'll need to compensate your sales personnel while doing it and manage cash flow. And you'll need to consider different compensation models and approaches based on your company's growth and development stage. Do you want to pursue multi-year deals and increase cash flow upfront? How are you going to incent your salesforce to do so without giving away the store?

This session prepares you build compelling ROI models (a sample template will be supplied by Jeff ) and effective compensation pans that incent your sales force.

Jeff Saling, Callidus Software
 

SaaS INFRASTRUCTURE TRACK:

Accelerating SaaS Application Delivery
 

Bringing multitenant SaaS solutions to market from scratch can mean 12-18 months of development and years of ongoing tuning, upgrades, and feature creep. What proven strategies can SaaS businesses take to accelerate that effort? What leveraged technologies can start filling the opportunity pipeline within three to six months? What are the service implications of adopting someone elses technology? What are some success stories?

Rick will cover this topic in detail as well as provide his own experiences in developing multiple SaaS businesses and now helping LongJump's ISV and MSP partners launch their own SaaS initiatives.

Pankaj Malviya, LongJump.com

 12:05 - 1:05PM

Birds of a Feather Lunch: Sit With SaaS Experts to Further Discuss Your Needs and Concerns (Your Choice, of Course)

   Afternoon

 1:05 - 1:55PM

Afternoon Keynote Addresses

Europe, SaaS, and the Cloud
 

As our 2010 SaaS Report demonstrated, international markets are an increasingly important part of the SaaS growth equation. But while SaaS acceptance is growing steadily in Europe, the Euro market presents unique challenges and obstacles.

This session will provide a continent-wide perspective on EuroSaaS and the growth of "Cloud" acceptance. Individual markets will be discussed and analyzed, with a focus on what types of localization, marketing, and technical issues and challenges characterize each market. In addition, Jan will be discussing where American companies can expect European companies to attempt to "colonize" the New World with Old World smarts and technology.

Jan Aleman, Servoy

 2:00 - 2:45PM

SaaS 2010: State of the Service, Market Impact, and What the Buyers Tell Us
 

Adoption of the software as a service (SaaS) deployment model has grown for nearly a decade, but its popularity has increased significantly within the last five years. Initial concerns about security, response time, and service availability have diminished for many organizations as SaaS business and computing models have matured and adoption has become more widespread.

But the growing maturity with SaaS has also tested the model and revealed challenges for both buyers and vendors in an increasingly competitive marketplace.  The presentation explores emerging trends in SaaS, profiles the vendor landscape and market impact, and summarizes evolving user adoption patterns of SaaS worldwide based on recent regional survey results. Key and up-to-date Gartner data will be made available to conferences attendees during this presentation. The session concludes with recommendations to consider implementing today for both buyers and providers of SaaS solutions.

Sharon Mertz, The Gartner Group

 2:45 - 2:55PM

  Networking Break

 2:55 - 3:30PM

MAIN TRACK:

SaaS and the Right Pricing Model
 

There's been a lot of hype recently about "new pay as you go" SaaS pricing models. The only problem with all of this is pay as you go is not new; Softletter's been tracking this model for years; "pay as you go" (or per usage or per transaction) pricing models are used by 29% of SaaS companies.

In this session, software pricing guru Jim Geisman will discuss the various pricing models available to SaaS companies and provide you with a roadmap to picking the model that best fits your business and revenue goals.

Jim Geisman, Software Pricing

SaaS INFRASTRUCTURE TRACK:

Surviving in the Shadow of Goliath: Leveraging Infrastructure Flexibility to Survive
 

Salesnet competes in a market segment that's very, very well known to anyone in SaaS - CRM. And as we all know, there's a $1B Dollar Gorilla in this market segment - Salesforce.com. Yet Salesnet is growing and thriving. How? Tight control over their infrastructure that drives value-based feature development and strenthens reseller relations. During this session, Tod Madderra of Salesnet will explain:

• How Salesnet scales up its infrastructure to optimize business value and operations.

• How they develop capabilities in tune with their infrastructure capabilities to address market niches and opportunities.

• How they use partner relationships to extend their infrastructure and build out their business "ecosystem."

Tod Madderra, Salesnet

SaaS SALES and MARKETING TRACK:

SaaS Marketing:  New messages, Audiences and Processes

In the 2010 Softletter SaaS Report, 27% of SaaS companies reported they did not have a set release schedule; they released new capabilies as they were ready. 21% said they released major updates three or more times a year. 18% said twice a year. Clearly, the traditional 12 to 18 month release cycle is not relevant to the majority of SaaS firms.

This session identifies the unique challenges of marketing a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution to enterprises. It highlights how SaaS marketing differs from traditional on-premise applications marketing in three essential ways:

• Target audience,

• Messages

• Marketing processes

For companies new to SaaS or those needing to enhance the effectiveness of their existing efforts, this session will help you recognize common SaaS marketing hazards and will offer practical advice on how to avoid them.

Peter Cohen, SaaS Marketing Strategy Advisors

TRANSITION TO SaaS TRACK:

To Build or to Lease Your IT Infrastructure – That is the Question!
 

So you’re planning to transition your software solution to a Software as a Service (SaaS) delivery model (or you’re thinking about it).  So now you need to decide if you’re going to build your IT infrastructure in-house or lease it.   This is one of the biggest decisions you will make in the transition to a SaaS delivery model.  This session will focus on the pro’s and con’s of either building your IT infrastructure in-house or leasing it.

Specifically you will learn:

• What the market demand is for SaaS applications
• Key considerations for building your own IT infrastructure
• Key considerations for leasing your IT infrastructure
• The pro’s and con’s of both options
• The typical costs associated with both options

At the end of this session, you will have a clear understanding of the benefits and the drawbacks of both - building your own infrastructure or leasing, so you can decide which option is best for your business model and strategy. 

Ivan Hurtt, Verio

 4:30 - 5:20PM

SaaS and the Rise of Community Management (and the Death of Traditional Product Management)
 

The growth of SaaS spells the end of product management as it's been as it's been defined in the software industry for the last thirty years. After SaaS ERP vendor Plex transitioned from client/server to SaaS, it jettisoned its entire product management/product marketing management framework. Current product management functions such as tick list herding, MRDs, PRDs,  "Agile" product management and the concept of no responsibility, no accountability, and no authority are as relevant to SaaS companies as DOS 3.0 and floppy disks.

Replacing "product manager's" will be "community managers," a new breed of people who will be tasked with optimizing your SaaS community, monetizing it, and working in an environment of bottom line metrics and measurable performance. If you're thinking about pulling out your checkbook and wasting money on outmoded product management training courses, obsolete product management research, reports, and publications, and the latest theories on "Agile" product management, put that check writing hand back in your pocket and attend this session to discover what your CMs should be doing to put money IN your pocket more quickly.

Patrick Fetterman, Plex

 5:30 - 6:10PM

Panel Session:

How's That "The Cloud Change's Everything" Thing Working for You?
 

A couple of years ago everyone thought we had it all figured out. Their was SaaS, PaaS for the Geeks, and the hardware folks had IaaS. Then some marketing genius came up with the "Cloud" and everything became..."cloudy." This lively panel session will take a look at the impact of the Cloud on customer attitudes towards SaaS, discuss ways to leverage Cloud excitement to increase sales, and challenge some of the conventional wisdom currently circulating. Panel participants will be chose the day of the conference and often include attendees.

Moderated by Jeff Kaplan, THINKstrategies

 6:10 - 7:30PM

Networking Session

Kick Back, Enjoy Some Drinks and Hors D'oeuvres With Your Peers

Day Two, Wednesday, November 10th

Morning

9:00 - 9:55AM

Second Day, Morning Keynote Addresses

SaaS Strategies for Success in the Cloud: What’s Working and What’s Not?
 

SaaS is becoming accepted as a viable alternative to traditional, legacy on-premise applications among organizations of all sizes across nearly every industry.

Now, aspiring SaaS vendors are facing a new set of challenges – rising customer expectations and intensifying competition. This session will discuss how SaaS vendors should develop and deliver their solutions and execute their go-to-market strategies to succeed in this rapidly changing market. Success and failure will be analyzed in depth.

Jeff Kaplan, THINKstrategies

10:00 - 10:55AM

Lessons from the Field: Putting Practical Best Practices in SaaS Customer Retention, Cash Management, and Executive Leadership
 

Founded in 1994, InfoStreet has survived the dot.com meltdown, ASP collapse, and the recent brutal recession, all the while increasing sales and profits. InfoStreet CEO Siamak Farah shares the secrets of his success and longevity with you in this compelling session. Siamak will be discussing:

• Effectively invest R&D resources to advance the product   
• Managing product strategy as a process and not as a series of events   
• Creating and effective process to align sales, services, product management and R&D
• Leveraging the lessons of "Crossing the Chasm" and "The Innovator's Dilemma"

 Learn Siamak's secrets in Boston!

Siamak Farah, InfoStreet

10:55 - 11:10AM

11:10- 11:55AM

 MAIN TRACK:

Selling Professional Services in SaaS: Necessary Evil, or a Strategic Part of your Revenue and Profits?

For software companies used to large implementation contracts, shocks await you in SaaS. Professional services are not as highly valued by your customers and there are critical differences  between on premise enterprise software and SaaS professional services implementations.

This session will analyze:

• Six critical components of an effective SAAS professional service organization

• Managing project/one time revenue vs. reoccurring revenue streams in professional services

• Shfiting from “on-site” service delivery to a remote services delivery model.

This session will prepare you to understand how to effectively provide and profit with professional services in SaaS.

Merritt Alberti, Compensation Technologies

TRANSITION TO SaaS:

Solution Accelerator: A Rapid Development Approach to SaaS
 

Softletter's SaaS Report reveals that only 15% of SaaS companies have made the commitment to a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) provider platform provider. While these services offer a distinct set of benefits, issues such as vendor lock-in, lack of control and inflexibility in the development platform constrain software vendors from readily embracing PaaS.

This session explores the question: Is there a way to realize the benefits of PaaS without the associated challenges?

This session will explore alternatives to PaaS and will outline an accelerated, technology approach to building SaaS applications hosted on a virtualized (Cloud) infrastructure from firm such as Amazon, Azure and OpSource.

Janaki Jayachandran, Aspire Systems

12:00 - 1:00PM

Working Lunch:  How to Negotiate and Close SaaS Enterprise Agreements
 

Getting your enterprise SAAS agreements closed can sometimes make the difference between an ok quarter and a great quarter. However, these deals are getting harder and harder to negotiate and close. So what do you do? We will go through some negotiating strategies and many practical tips/techniques that should dramatically help get these deals signed. There are no guarantees, but there are methods to dramatically speed up this process.

Jeremy Aber, Owner, Aber Law Firm

   Afternoon

 1:05 - 1:55PM

MAIN TRACK:

Lessons from the Field: The Growth Inflection Points

Avid Exchange is a SaaS success story that has bootstrapped itself to a 10m+ run rate. As the company grows, it's had to learn to manage important changes in:

• Development
• Sales and marketing strategies
• Customer service and communications

CEO David Miller will provide candid and real world advice and insight into how growing SaaS firms can best manage change and growth.

David Miller, AvidXchange
 

SaaS FINANCES TRACK:

SaaS Revenue Recognition Accounting Update

Recent changes to accounting rules could significantly impact how SaaS companies price and sell service offerings. Learn about these changes and other SaaS specific revenue issues to help optimize your selling practices, stay ahead of the competition and stay out of trouble.”
 
Hank Galligan, CPA,  BDO, LLP

 2:00 - 2:45PM

MAIN TRACK:

Best Practices in SaaS Customer Service
 

Unlike licensed and client/server software sales with their "sell and go" (until the next update) strategies, SaaS is "sell and grow." Your customer base is in touch and in contact on a constant basis, which creates new support challenges and opens new sales opportunities.

This session will examine in detail:

• Best practices in SaaS report.
• Optimal ways to structure your services operations
• Most effective ways to leverage customer service and support to grown revenues.

An invaluable session for any SaaS firm.

Tom Appleton, DreamFactory

SaaS SALES AND MARKETING TRACK:
 
How to Create a Tsunami of Demand for your SaaS Company
 

Attaining your SaaS revenue goals in 2010 requires sales velocity, volume and visibility. Too often software Chief Executives do not have sales and revenue visibility into quarters. There is a need for a capital efficient approach which will eliminate costly marketing and sales experimentation and build a scalable demand generation engine.

During this presentation we will present the “SaaS Revenue Acceleration Map” so that you will have a step-by-step roadmap to accelerate and scale your sales and revenue. We will also present the top 6 key takeaways to executing a successful go-to-market strategy for SaaS and Cloud Computing Companies.

Robert Jurkowski, OnDemand Advisors

 2:45 - 3:10PM

Break

 3:10 - 3:50PM

MAIN TRACK:

Dealing with SaaS and Cloud Data  Security Concerns
 

What is the number one worry of prospective SaaS and other cloud application customers?  You guessed it – data security!  Corporate CIOs in particular can be nervous about having private and proprietary information residing outside the corporate firewall.  Moreover, with certain types of data, there is an alphabet soup of regulatory requirements to satisfy:  GLBA, HIPAA, COPPA, FERPA, etc.  

As a SaaS provider, how do you respond?  Offering ironclad guarantees of data security is foolish.  You’re not Fort Knox!  Yet there are contractual, certification and other measures that can reassure your customers that their data is safe without leaving you open to huge liabilities if data security breaches do occur.

These and related topics surrounding data security – including the growing opportunities for providing cloud applications to state and federal government agencies -- will be tackled in this fast-moving presentation by a DC-based lawyer with deep experience in software licensing and cloud legal issues.

Michael Whitener, VistaLaw International LLC
 

SaaS FINANCES TRACK:

The Gimlet VC Eye: What the Money Men Want to See
 

Interested in VC funding? Interested in continuing to receive VC funding? Then you need to understand the financial heart of today's SaaS VC. Venture folk really want to see you succeed and to ensure you're on the path to success, they'll be measuring you on:

• Operational efficiency
• Sales goals and how
• Cash flow and management
• Revenue growth
• Sale management and compensation

And maybe a few other things.

This session will drill down into what your VC wants to see.

Douglas McFetters, CAP Idea

MAIN TRACK:

Building a SaaS Reseller Channel: A Step by Step Approach
 

This session takes you step-by-step through the process of building an effective SaaS reseller channel. From affiliate-class programs to VAR-reseller recruitment efforts designed to support enterprise sales, you'll be provided with the tools and information you need to get started on your channel and partnering activities.

Randy Hujar, Softletter.com

SaaS FINANCES TRACK:
 

SaaS Face Plant Protection: Offering Your Customers Complete Fallover and Escrow Protection
 

Our 2010 SaaS and SaaS escrow report reveals increasing numbers of customers are interested in both escrow and fallover protection. This session breaks out what you need to tell your customers, what they'll be inclined to pay for escrow and failover support, and how to integrate this information into your sales and marketing cycle.

John Boruvka, Iron Mountain

 4:35 - 4:40PM

Closing Remarks, Rick Chapman