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Hear Mike Lonski Speak at PUG Challenge Americas 2012!

PUG Challenge Americas will be here before you know it so, make plans now to attend!  The event, being held may 6-9th in Westford, MA, is an  independent face-to-face forum for exchanging ideas, tips and best practices on the Progress suite of technology tools.   Expert speakers from Progress Software and the community present over 40 technical sessions plus many workshops, info exchanges and commercial sessions, this conference is the destination for guidance on real-world OpenEdge innovations.

Allegro's own Mike Lonski will be giving two talks at this years' event, Pick An Index, Any Index and An IDE Whose Time Has Come.  See below for descriptions of each session.  To register for PUG Challenge or for more information, visit pugchallenge.org.

Pick An Index, Any Index

The core of Progress is the database and the core of accessing the database are its indices.  Knowing the in's and out's of the DB engine rules can make or break an application's performance.  With the increase in dynamic programming models, the ability to properly select indices and, more importantly, prove which ones are being used is paramount.  From the COMPILE listing to the INDEX-INFORMATION method to new Open Edge 10 logging features, learn how to predict and provide index usage and take back control of your applications.

An IDE Whose Time Has Come

OpenEdge 10 has been out for a few years now.  As always, new versions bring change and one of the biggest for the Progress developer is the move away from the Progress proprietary integrated development environment (IDE) to one that is an industry standard.  Changing your OE Studio licenses with its familiar AppBuilder over to OE Architect licenses with an IDE based on the Eclipse platform can seem daunting but it shouldn't.  Come get a quick tour of the Architect environment and see how easy it is to move to this new and vastly improved IDE.

Progress Software Names Mike Gualtieri Vice President, Responsive Process Management Solutions Marketing

Progress Software Corporation, a leading software provider that enables companies to be operationally responsive, announced today that Mike Gualtieri has joined the company as Vice President of Marketing of the Responsive Process Management (RPM) practice.  Formerly with leading research firm Forrester Research, Gualtieri will lead the marketing of the Progress RPM® solutions, which helps organizations sense and respond to threats and opportunities, and helps them stay ahead of the competition through continuous business process improvement.

While at Forrester, Gualtieri consulted with business and delivery professionals to help them evaluate and deploy high performing business applications and solutions. Before joining Forrester, he was with Bank of America and was president of Mesh Technologies for more than ten years. Throughout his career, Gualtieri has helped hundreds of global companies modernize their business operations through the development, architecture and strategic implementation of business applications and has managed teams of software developers, researchers and marketers across a multitude of industries including logistics, banking, manufacturing and healthcare. Gualtieri earned his bachelor’s degree in computer science and management of technology from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

“We picked Gualtieri to lead the marketing of Progress RPM solution practice because of his expertise in software development, architecture and strategy, and we’re confident he’s the right one to help Progress become the clear leader in the emerging intelligent business operations market,” said John Goodson, senior vice president of products , Progress Software.

About Progress Software Corporation
Progress Software Corporation  (NASDAQ: PRGS) is an independent enterprise software company that enables businesses to be operationally responsive to changing conditions and customer interactions as they occur – to capitalize on new opportunities, drive greater efficiencies and reduce risk.  The company offers a comprehensive portfolio of best-in-class enterprise software spanning event-driven visibility and real-time response, open integration, data access and integration, and application development and deployment – all supporting on-premises and SaaS/Cloud deployments.  Progress maximizes the benefits of operational responsiveness while minimizing IT complexity and total cost of ownership. Progress can be reached at www.progress.com or +1-781-280-4000.

Progress, Progress RPM, and Progress Software are trademarks or registered trademarks of Progress Software Corporation and/or its subsidiaries or affiliates in the U.S. and other countries.  Any other names contained herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Henry Hicks Named Industry Vice President, Supply Chain

Progress Software Corporation has named Henry Hicks as Industry Vice President, Supply Chain. A long-time advocate for the optimization of the virtual supply chain, Hicks will drive the market strategy and solution development for Progress Software's global Supply Chain Practice, helping customers gain real-time foresight into disruptions and offering them the ability to conquer supply chain complexity and meet service level agreements. Hicks' unparalleled expertise in sales and marketing strategy and supply chain management has been honed through a breadth of strategic positions. Recently, Hicks was the Vice President of Worldwide Services Sales and Marketing for Lenovo Computers and was responsible for long-term growth strategies and overall sales performance of the division. Prior to Lenovo, Hicks was a Vice President at Capgemini Consulting and led the West Supply Chain Practice, where he advised clients on how to optimize and virtualize their supply chains. He has also held key roles with Deloitte, Dell, Frito Lay and UPS.

Jay Bhatt, president and chief executive officer, Progress Software said: "Business leaders need real visibility to mitigate risks and take quick, decisive actions, and the supply chain presents an enormous opportunity to realize these benefits. Hicks' expertise and leadership will help Progress customers deploy supply chain technologies that enable them to become more operationally responsive and build market share."

Hicks earned his bachelor's degree in Operations Management from Auburn University and his master's of business administration from Emory University.

Important Announcement Regarding Linux Support for Progress Developer Studio in OE 11.0

Progress Open Edge 11.0 will not include Linux support for Progress Developer Studio for OpenEdge (formerly OE Architect) as previously planned. After a review of Progress-wide tooling strategies, the OE release team has decided to shelf new Linux support in OE 11 so that they may better align with the tooling platforms of other products in the Progress portfolio. MS Windows will remain the only supported platform for progress Developer Studio.

Relive Progress Revolution!

In case you haven't heard, Progress Revolution was a big success!   Attended by more than 700 participants from around the world, Progress Revolution was a memorable and productive event!  You can now access the audio files from Progress Revolution at http://businessmaking.progress.com/content/progressrevolution2011archive.  Available downloads are broken down by track and break out session.

Progress Software to Sponsor and Speak at the Cloud Channel Summit

Progress Software will sponsor and speak at the Cloud Channel Summit on November 7th in Mt. View, CA.  The Cloud Channel Summit is a one day executive forum where channel and partner development executives will share industry best practices and ideas for building profitable and successful channel partnerships in the Cloud.  For more information, visit Cloud Channel Summit.com.

Progress Software President and CEO, Richard D. Reidy, to Step Down

Progress Software Corporation announced yesterday that President and Chief Executive Officer, Richard D. Reidy, will leave the company when a successor is named.  An external search will be initiated immediately. At the request of the company’s board of directors, Mr. Reidy will continue as President and CEO of the company until a successor has been confirmed.

Mr. Reidy has held numerous leadership positions at the enterprise software company during his 27-year tenure. He was appointed President and CEO in March 2009 and  provided the vision and leadership for Progress Software’s repositioning and its current business strategy. During this time, Mr. Reidy restructured the company, unifying its product and solution portfolio  into the company’s current “One Progress” structure, creating a more focused go-to-market discipline.

Michael Mark, Chairman of the Progress Board of Directors, said: “We deeply appreciate Rick’s excellent leadership through what have been transformative years and we’re thankful for the strong contributions Rick has made to Progress Software since its early days.  We are also grateful he has chosen to lead the company in the coming months as we search for a permanent CEO.”

Mr. Reidy commented: "Progress Software has undergone a profound and successful transformation over the past few years.  We have repositioned and refocused the company in exciting new high growth areas and are executing well.  New leadership will help accelerate our strategy going forward.  Progress has a rich 30 year history of providing compelling products, solutions and service, all of which continue to drive success for our customers and partners.   I would like to thank every Progress employee, customer and partner for the contributions they continue to make to the company's success."

Mr. Reidy will continue to serve on the company’s board of directors until his departure date.  The terms of Mr. Reidy’s departure were mutually agreed upon by Mr. Reidy and the Progress board of directors.

Coming Soon - OpenEdge 11.0

OpenEdge is designed to assist software developers and partners to become more operationally responsive to market and customer needs now and in the future. With OpenEdge, service and application development is agile and cost-effective, and the ensuing applications are reliable, easy to maintain, cost effective, and service-enabled. As a result, companies and partners are able to capitalize on new opportunities by getting competitive applications to market more quickly.

With SaaS being a key market driver for OpenEdge 11.0, a set of seven characteristics have been identified as being critical to achieving technological success with SaaS applications. The “7 Keys to Success” are:

• Multi-Tenancy
• User Interface Flexibility
• Operational Excellence
• Productivity
• Security & Compliance
• Integration
• Personalization
  
  

With OpenEdge 11.0, there are significant new capabilities within each of these “keys to success” categories that enable our customers and partners to deliver Responsive Business Applications (RBA). Here is a glimpse into some of the key new features:

Multi-Tenancy: Multi-tenant Tables

A multi-tenant database is one which provides database support to a number of separate and distinct groups of users, also referred to as tenants. Multi-tenant applications have taken an increasing foothold in the database marketplace largely due to the emergence of SaaS as a deployment strategy. For the SaaS application provider, a multi-tenant deployment strategy provides many benefits, especially when a Shared Tenancy approach is used. Management of the deployment can take place either at the overall application or database level, or based on tenant and user. Operational complexity is greatly reduced due to the number of shared resources and because only one instance of the application and database is involved. With OpenEdge 11.0, developing and deploying multi-tenant applications is transformed by using an approach that is unique in the industry, reducing and even eliminating the challenges typically presented when implementing a Shared Tenancy application. This is due to two major factors:

1. Tenant support is implemented in the database layer
2. Database utilities and tools are also tenant-aware.
   
   

The significant advantage of the first point is that the application no longer has to manage tenancy - simplifying the code and making tenancy completely transparent. For the second point, the operational aspects of the database are also capable of acting in a mode that is either tenant-specific or database-specific. This streamlines key functions such as index maintenance, data dump and load, object moves, and other database functions.

User Interface Flexibility: Enhanced Rich Internet Application (RIA) Support

Today, the market demand is high for web applications that have many of the qualities and characteristics of desktop applications but are delivered over the web. RIAs combine the flexibility, responsiveness, and ease of use of desktop applications with the broad reach of the web. RIAs provide a dynamic web experience that is rich and engaging, as well as interactive. RIA technologies provide a variety of development, deployment, and runtime options for SaaS-based applications.

Due to the flexibility of the platform, OpenEdge already supports many different RIA technologies. Since no RIA technology has taken the lead, OpenEdge 11.0 will provide support for many additional options, more specifically:

• JSON parser support in the ABL
• Updated Infragistics controls (GUI for .NET)
• Architect support for custom project types (Ajax/WebSpeed)
  
  

Operational Excellence: Performance and Reliability Improvements

OpenEdge 11.0 continues to focus on supporting the development of high-performance and ultra-reliable applications to support the needs of 24x7 business operations with ever-increasing numbers of users. Across the board - the AppServer, the database, the DataServers, and more - critical performance enhancements have been made to ensure that your application match aggressive business demands. Diagnostic and monitoring tools have been improved and enhanced to provide a more proactive environment for troubleshooting issues. Additionally, special considerations have been made to facilitate deployments to the Cloud where performance and reliability are paramount.

PUG Challenge Americas 2011 Downloads Available

In case you missed the opportunity to hear Mike Lonski speak at PUG Challenge Americas 2011, you can now access his slides and demo code.  Mike presented on two topics, Pick an Index, Any Index and An IDE Whose Time Has Come.  Visit PUG Central to view these and other PUG presentations.

Have You Registered for Progress Revolution Yet?

Don't miss out on this rare opportunity to get actionable insights that help you lower costs, raise efficiency, improve the customer experience, and drive revenue.   Progress Revolution’s purpose is to showcase the entire family of OpenEdge products and not just the ABL and database we all know and rely on.  There will be a lot of new information not seen before, even for those that attended PUG Challenge Americas 2011.  The conference can show you how to take advantage of non-OE products (such as Sonic and Actional) that can increase the value and capabilities of your existing OpenEdge applications.   For example, you will hear from a financial services firm in the UK talk about how they incorporated Sonic to provide millisecond stock trading applications built on OE.  They have now become one of the most competitive trading houses on the London Stock Exchange!

Also, don't forget that there are over 17 tracks and 140 sessions designed for business and IT professionals.  If you just returned from PUG Challenge and are concerned about repeat sessions, don't be! These sessions at Progress Revolution are designed to provide new and different content that you haven't seen before.  Some of the session titles include:

•Business application development and a new cloud ecosystem for the PROGRESS OPENEDGE community
•Applications Breaking Barriers with DATA CONNECTIVITY in the Modern Enterprise
•Modernizing CORBA/ORBIX systems
•Building a responsive business with the PROGRESS RESPONSIVE PROCESS MANAGEMENT (RPM) suite
•Next generation INTEGRATION for the responsive business
•Best practices, Key Trends, and New Ideas in Your INDUSTRY

As an attendee, you will also be privy to networking events.  A welcome reception will be held Monday evening, September 19th.   You will have the opportunity to mingle with Progress customer and partners from around the world.  There will be an Expo reception on Tuesday, September 20th.  Here, Progress will introduce the latest partner solutions while you enjoy hors d’oeuvres and beverages.  Finally, on Wednesday, September 21st, Progress Revolution will host a private concert by Grammy winning artists, Train!
There are too many fantastic opportunities to mention.  Please visit Progress Revolution for additional details and to register!  Registration for this landmark conference is open until September 18th, 2011.

Announcing Progress Revolution:  The Premiere LIVE Global Conference of the Year!

19-22 September 2011

Westin Hotel and Convention Center
Boston, Massachusetts

Have you missed face-to-face, live interaction with your peers?  Well, Progress has a great opportunity for you to reconnect.  Progress Revolution is an exciting, new conference from Progress Software. With more than 100 sessions covering industry, business, and technical topics, attendees from the world’s leading enterprises will have the opportunity to discover how “to build a responsive business.”

This event combines the best of several user conferences, including the event formerly named Exchange, and will include exciting guest speakers and networking opportunities, sprinkled with entertainment and information exchanges.

Visit Progress Revolution for registration information.