Saugatuck Managing Director Chairs Open Source + SaaS Panel at MySQL Event

Strategy leaders to share insights April 17th on open source's impact on SaaS and hosting SLAs.

Westport, CT (PRWEB) April 9, 2008 -- As user organizations depend more and more on software-as-a-service (SaaS) for mission-critical, enterprise-level applications and processes, the service level agreements (SLAs) of SaaS providers - and the hosting service providers providing SaaS infrastructure - become critical aspects of business and competition.

Meanwhile, SaaS providers and hosting service providers are increasingly building or extending their infrastructures using open-source software. This enables significant cost savings and independence from vendor-specific technologies, which in turn enable providers to deliver more services at lower costs, while improving their ability to modify offerings and upgrade functionalities. But the use of open source also opens up providers to a range of issues regarding vendor management, software licensing, tech support, and more - which in turn can increase challenges in developing, and delivering to, user SLAs. The open-source-driven critical issues for SaaS providers, hosting providers, developers and users regarding SLAs will be addressed in an April 17th panel discussion at the MySQL Conference in Santa Clara, CA.

Moderated by Saugatuck's Managing Director of Research Bruce Guptill, the panel is scheduled to include Gregg Kitaeff, SVP of managed hosting services provider Logicworks; Don Barlow, SVP of Operations for SaaS delivery experts OpSource; and Pankaj Malvya, CEO and Founder of on-demand CRM provider Relationals.

"I'm honored to be part of both the MySQL event and to be part of such a distinguished panel. These are market-leading organizations, with great vision and insight about real-world provider and user concerns," stated Guptill. "The combination of their experience and Saugatuck's latest SaaS and Open Source research will provide attendees with useful ideas about open source, SaaS, hosting, and SLAs."

The panel is scheduled to begin in Ballroom B at 2:50pm on Thursday, April 17th 2008 as part of the MySQL conference and Expo "Business and Case Studies" track. For more information on the panel, please go to http://en.oreilly.com/mysql2008/public/content/home. For more information on Saugatuck's SaaS and open source market research, please visit www.saugatech.com.

About Saugatuck Technology

Saugatuck Technology Inc. provides market strategy consulting and subscription research services to senior executives, information technology vendors, and investors, combining strategy development, business planning, and market intelligence with first-hand research of executive technology buyer trends. Founded in 1999, Saugatuck is headquartered in Westport, Connecticut (USA), with offices in Silicon Valley and in Germany. For more information, go to www.saugatech.com, or call +1.203.454.3900 in the US, or +49.6123.630285 in Germany.

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