IBM, Microsoft, Research In Motion, Jigsaw, Levementum and Talend to Sponsor Commercial Open Source CRM Conference

CUPERTINO, Calif.– SugarCRM, the world’s leading provider of commercial open source customer relationship management (CRM) software, today announced keynotes and sponsors for SugarCon 2009, the company’s global customer and developer conference, February 2-4, 2009, at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, California. IBM, Microsoft, Research In Motion, Jigsaw and Talend are among the industry leaders sponsoring the conference, which is designed for users, developers and managers of CRM projects. Space is limited, so please visit http://www.sugarcrm.com/crm/events/sugarcon/register.html for more information and to secure a reservation.

The kick-off keynote, “The Open Cloud: Open Source and Cloud Computing Converge,” by SugarCRM co-founder and CEO John Roberts, will look at how open source and cloud computing are blending to provide customers with greater control and lower risk for their CRM deployments.

Three speakers will lend different perspectives on the current financial turmoil:

“Panic: Modern Financial Insanity” by Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball and Liar’s Poker, will provide perspective on the ongoing financial crisis – how we got here and where we are headed. In the past few months, Mr. Lewis has written two widely read articles on the origins of the financial meltdown for Portfolio (“The End” http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom) and The New York Times (“The End of the Financial World as we Know It” http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/opinion/04lewiseinhorn.html?em).

“Retaining Customers in an Economic Downturn” by Paul Greenberg, author of CRM at the Speed of Light and president of the 56Group, will look at how companies can sustain and grow their customer base when times are tough. Mr. Greenberg is a noted CRM visionary who writes the top-rated CRM blog on the Web http://the56group.typepad.com/ based on rankings performed by InsideCRM.com. His book CRM at the Speed of Light is considered by many a must-read on the topic of CRM, and is now in its fourth edition.

“Managing a Sales Org in Tough Economic Times” by Mark Leslie, lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business and founding chairman and CEO of Veritas, will examine how companies can navigate a tough economy to achieve faster growth and greater profits. During his tenure as CEO, Veritas grew from 12 employees to 5,500 employees deployed globally and increased revenue from $95,000 per year to $1,500,000,000 per year.

Technology keynotes include:

“Free: As in Markets” by Jonathan Schwartz, chief executive officer and president of Sun Microsystems, sees an unprecedented opening in the market – driven by companies’ need to change – that’s increasing demand for free and open technology. Schwartz is a leader behind many of Sun’s open source and standard setting initiatives, and he’s been an outspoken advocate for the network as a utility with more than just value for the computing industry – but as a tool for driving economic, social and political progress.

“Faster, Cheaper, Better: Pick Any Three” by Jerry Cuomo, IBM vice president, fellow and CTO of WebSphere, will provide a panoramic view of how emerging trends and technologies are changing the face of technology, and how IBM is working to harness innovation through powerful new solutions such as WebSphere sMash.

“Open Data Meets Open Source” by Jim Fowler, co-founder and CEO of Jigsaw, will talk about his company’s vision for making company data freely available, easily accessible and transferable to professional contact systems and enterprise-level CRM solutions. In 2004, Jigsaw was first to introduce a directory of business contacts that harnessed user-generated content.

In addition to the keynotes, SugarCon 2009 offers over 70 sessions across six tracks tailored to SugarCRM customers, partners, administrators, developers and community members. To view a complete agenda, please visit http://www.sugarcrm.com/crm/events/sugarcon/agenda.html.

SugarCon 2009 includes the following extracurricular activities:

• An evening cruise around the scenic San Francisco Bay on the majestic San Francisco Spirit with fine dining, drinks, live music, dancing, gaming and poker.
• Welcome reception and dinner at the Palace Hotel.

IBM and Jigsaw are Platinum Sponsors for SugarCon. Gold Sponsors include Microsoft, Talend, Research In Motion and Levementum. Angel.com, iEnterprises, Oracle, Plus Consulting, SkyData, SnapLogic and Sun Microsystems are Silver Sponsors. Selling Power Magazine, CRM Media, InsideCRM.com and PHP Magazine are media sponsors of the event.

Attendance cost is $267 per person. Please visit http://www.sugarcrm.com/crm/events/sugarcon/register.html to register.

About SugarCRM

SugarCRM is the world’s leading provider of commercial open source customer relationship management (CRM) software for companies of all sizes. Sugar easily adapts to any business environment by offering a more flexible, cost-effective alternative than proprietary applications. SugarCRM’s open source architecture allows companies to more easily customize and integrate customer-facing business processes in order to build and maintain more profitable relationships. SugarCRM offers several deployment options, including on-demand, on-premise and appliance-based solutions to suit customers’ security, integration and configuration needs. For more information, call (408) 454-6900 or 1 87 SUGARCRM toll free in the US, email contact@sugarcrm.com, or visit http://www.sugarcrm.com.