Jan Aleman

CEO, Servoy, B.V.
 

Jan Aleman is the CEO of Servoy, B.V. - an application development and deployment software that specializes in assisting ISVs move their products to SaaS while maintaining their on-premises clients. Prior to helping found Servoy, Mr. Aleman was an owner of Professional Data Management (PDM) -- an IT company specializing in building data-oriented solutions. Besides custom solutions, PDM developed a number of innovative products for Internet and Database solutions, like plug-ins. More than 20,000 users are currently employing these products worldwide in companies such as: Apple, Sony, Genentech, Endemol, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, Time, USA today and others. Mr. Aleman is a sought after speaker about SaaS and Rich Internet Applications (RIA) presents at conferences and conferences across Europe, South America and the USA.  His keynote sessions at ServoyWorld are always highly anticipated. 

Merrill R. (Rick) Chapman

Managing Editor and Publisher of Softletter & Conference Chairman
 

Rick Chapman is the managing editor and publisher of Softletter, the industry's premier business publication. Rick has worked in the software industry for over 24 years with such firms as MicroPro and Ashton-Tate. He is the author of The Product Marketing Handbook for Software (Aegis Resources) and In Search of Stupidity: Over 20 Years of High Tech Marketing Disasters. His latest book is "SaaS Entrepreneur: The Definitive Guide to Starting and Sustaining Your Cloud Applications Business." 

Patrick Fetterman

Vice President, Plex Systems, Inc.

Patrick Fetterman is vice president of marketing of Plex Systems, Inc, developers of Plex Online ™ on-demand software for the manufacturing enterprise, Plex Online combines the capabilities of enterprise resource planning (ERP), manufacturing execution systems (MES), supply chain management (SCM), customer relationship management (CRM), shop floor integration, quality management, and much more. Prior to joining Plex, Fetterman was with New York City-based Mi8 Corp., where he served as vice president of marketing and products from 2000 to 2005, and as president from 2005 to 2006. During Fetterman’s tenure with Mi8, the company built a reputation as a trailblazer in the software as a service (SaaS) market, and earned a position as the premium quality provider in the highly competitive market for on demand Microsoft solutions. (back to top/index)

Sharon Mertz

Gartner Research Director, SaaS, CRM, Russian Software Markets
 

Sharon Mertz is a director in Gartner Research, where she is focused on customer relationship management (CRM), software as a service (SaaS) and the software markets in Russia. Ms. Mertz is an international business professional with more than 25 years of experience in strategic consulting and management directed toward the introduction and impact of emerging technologies in the marketplace.

Prior to joining Gartner, Ms. Mertz was an associate partner at IBM, working with the global research organizations to evaluate emerging business opportunities. She held an international assignment as practice leader for IBM's strategic consulting organization in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Ms. Mertz also held management roles at KPMG, HP, Bull Worldwide Information Systems and Digital Equipment. She is an accomplished speaker and has addressed audiences at conferences and events internationally. Ms. Mertz is also a member of the faculty at the Graduate School of Business, Southern New Hampshire University.

"I enjoy analyzing the implications of global market forces and IT industry trends on our clients' strategic business models. Emerging technologies have significantly altered the international business landscape and have transformed the globalization process. Anticipating the impact of these forces on the market and extrapolating from them to form actionable strategies and opportunities for our clients is an exciting and ongoing challenge." She has a Doctorate in Business Administration from Sourthern New Hampshire University, a C.S.S. C.S.S., Administration and Management, Harvard University, Class Marshal, and a B.A., Art History and German Literature, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi.

Zach Nelson

CEO of NetSuite Inc.

Zach Nelson is an accomplished software industry executive and visionary with more than 20 years of leadership experience.  He has held a variety of executive positions spanning marketing, sales, product development and business strategy with leading companies such as Oracle, Sun Microsystems, and McAfee/Network Associates.  Under Nelson's leadership, NetSuite has grown exponentially year over year to become one of the industry's leading SaaS companies. As the primary driver of NetSuite's vision and market direction, Nelson led NetSuite's successful IPO in December 2007. Nelson holds a patent in the field of application integration, and has several others pending approval. He holds B.S. and M.A. degrees from Stanford University.

Kevin O'Brien

Senior Director, ISV & SaaS Strategy for Worldwide Alliances and Channels, Oracle Corporation

Kevin O’Brien is Senior Director of ISV & SaaS Strategy for Worldwide Alliances & Channels at Oracle Corporation. He is responsible for ongoing development and execution of Oracle’s ISV programs and strategies, including SaaS, Oracle Exastack and Oracle Validated Integration. Prior to this role, Mr. O’Brien worked in Oracle’s Technology Channel Program Office, launching high growth initiatives targeted at mid-sized businesses. Before that, Mr. O’Brien led go-to-market activities with ISV and channel partners in the North America division. He received his BA in Government from Colby College and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Roger Sippl

Chairman, Elastic Intelligence

Roger Sippl is a Silicon Valley software pioneer, entrepreneur and innovator. His 30 years of contributions have helped shape the enterprise software technology landscape of today. In 1980 he founded Informix Software, and was CEO for 10 years, taking it public in 1986. Under his leadership, Informix pioneered SQL relational databases, report generators, screen data entry packages, 4GL application development tools, and scalable OLTP database technology. It is now a part of IBM, after peaking at a $4B market cap as an independent public company.

Sippl was also co-founder and Chairman of The Vantive Corporation. Vantive became a leader in CRM, went public in 1995, peaked at a $1B market cap, and is now a part of PeopleSoft/Oracle. In 1993, he founded and was CEO of Visigenic Software, helping pioneer distributed object computing and the concept of the application server (based on CORBA, prior to the J2EE standard). Visigenic went public in 1998. After the Visigenic IPO Mr. Sippl earned the “Golden Hat Trick Award” from Cristina Morgan at JP Morgan/Hambrecht and Quist for three Silicon Valley IPOs.

In the mid-nineties, Sippl became a founding partner of Sippl Macdonald Ventures. He invested in several successful software companies, including Illustra (acquired by Informix), Broadvision (IPO), SupportSoft (board seat and IPO) and Red Pepper (acquired by PeopleSoft). In 2002, Sippl founded Above All Software, a composite application platform that used web services and service-oriented architecture (SOA). Other investments included Talarian, a messaging company (IPO, now part of Tibco), TimesTen, a main memory DBMS company (now part of Oracle) and Cloudscape, the first all-Java DBMS (acquired by Informix).

In 2008 he founded Elastic Intelligence specifically to provide a hosted and scalable Connection Cloud, a report writer and other business intelligence modules to SaaS companies and users. The Connection Cloud makes all structured data on the web appear as if it is one giant relational database. The Report Cloud is available to SaaS companies that would like to add report writing to their offering without having to implement it themselves, but rather, just link to it and provide the functionality to users as if it were part of their application.

Mr. Sippl has been on over a dozen boards of directors of for profit corporations, public and private, and has also served on several non-profit boards. He was the representative of the software industry on the X/OPEN board of directors, and was a founding board member of /usr/group and the Uniform Unix trade association in the 1980’s. Mr. Sippl has also been the Chairman of the Stanford Cancer Council for over 20 years, as well as serving on three school boards. He currently serves on the boards of Elastic Intelligence (private), Filtini (private) and SolarWinds (public SWI).

Roger Sippl studied Biochemistry, Immunology and Computer Science at the University of California at Berkeley, earning a BS degree in Computer Science in 1977.

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