IDG, SIIA Collocate Events
By Rachel Wimberly -- Tradeshow Week, 10/9/2006
The Software & Information Industry Assn.'s Software Strategy Summit will be collocated with IDG World Expo's second annual Software as a Service (SaaScon) event scheduled April 17–18, 2007, at the Santa Clara (Calif.) Convention Center.
Patty Caron, IDG brand vice president for SaaScon, said, "It's bringing all the worlds together to understand what Software as a Service (Saas) means to them and bringing them all under one roof." SIIA, an 800-member trade association, provides services in government relations, business development, corporate education and intellectual property for the software and digital content industry. Its Software Strategy Summit is an annual meeting created to address changes and emerging trends within the software industry.
David Thomas, executive director of SIIA's software division, said in a press release, "IDG World Expo's tradeshow leadership and the SIIA's thought leadership will deliver both the participants and the content to cover this important shift in the industry."
IDG produces more than 170 technology-related events, including LinuxWorld Conference & Expo, Macworld Conference & Expo and SaaScon.
The Software as a Service model, or Saas, is used for application service providers and the changeover from receiving software in a box and having to download it individually onto a computer, to having an Internet-based delivery system that a company would pay for as it uses it.
"It is going to fundamentally change the end buyer usage," Caron said. "There are going to be different issues: Is it reliable? Secure? Do I have enough bandwidth?"
SaaScon addressed such issues at its inaugural event, with 400 attendees and a 12,169 square foot showfloor, held Sept. 26–27 in San Francisco.
Caron said there were primarily two types of attendees at the event, IT and business managers and independent software developers.
"We were thrilled," she said. "It's great to have an event that the community wanted to come together."
With next year's collocation also comes a move to Santa Clara and a showfloor expanding to 22,758 sq. ft.
