Centric CRM CEO David Richards to Deliver General Session Presentation at SYS-CON's SOA Enterprise Open Source Event in June

Market Wire, April, 2006

SYS-CON Events ( www.events.sys-con.com ) announced today that Centric CRM will be one of the sponsors of the SOA Enterprise Open Source Conference to take place June 5-6, 2006, at the historical Roosevelt Hotel in New York City.

David Richards, CEO of Centric CRM, will also deliver one of the general sessions at the conference. Since 1989, David has worked with a combination of mature and growth companies. He began his career as President of AutoNet in 1989 and served in that capacity for two years; this early stage company established one of the earliest electronic marketplaces of used-vehicles in the United States. After AutoNet, David joined the Greensboro (NC) News & Record, a subsidiary of Landmark Communications. In his role of vice president of sales and marketing he was responsible for all of the company's revenue departments: advertising, circulation, promotions, marketing and specialty publications. After serving with the News & Record David moved into the position of vice president of corporate development at Landmark. He reported to the CEO and worked with the senior executive team making investments in new media. In 1995 David was appointed president & CEO of InfiNet, Inc. InfiNet was a three-way joint venture of Landmark, Gannett and Knight-Ridder -- the former being the founding company, the latter two follow-along investors. InfiNet is now wholly owned by Gannett. David returned to Landmark in 1997 to become corporate vice president. In this position he was responsible for two, wholly owned subsidiaries: Landmark Community Interests and CareerWeb. In April 1998, David was named chairman & CEO of Physicians' Online, a company backed by venture capitalists including AT&T Ventures, Invesco Funds, and Advent International. At that time Physicians' Online was the largest authenticated community of on-line physicians in the world ( 200,000 MD members). POL was a turnaround that David successfully sold after 18 months for $180 million prior to his departure in December 1999. David founded Centric CRM in January 2000.

David received his BA from Williams College and his MBA from the Colgate Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia. He is married to Janie Battle Richards and they live with their two sons in Norfolk, VA.

Centric CRM Presentation Abstract: "Putting the 'Enterprise' into Enterprise Open Source Software"

CRM -- Customer Relationship Management -- is a business strategy, not a technology. Every organization employs some method of CRM whether it be a deck of index cards, a spreadsheet, or an expensive proprietary computer system. Until recently, sophisticated CRM systems were reserved exclusively for very large enterprises. Fortunately, that is no longer the case. One of the most exciting developments in CRM technology is the emergence of true enterprise-class open source CRM applications. By their very nature, open source applications are less expensive to acquire, deploy and support than proprietary solutions. When correctly designed and implemented, an Enterprise Open Source system like Centric CRM 4.0 will provide true enterprise-class security, scalability, and features at a price and in a form accessible to everyone.

David Richards' presentation will focus on several key points of concern to IT decision-makers looking to support critical corporate business objectives with Enterprise Open Source solutions. Among them, Mr. Richards will explore:

-An appropriate definition of "Customer Relationship Management," and what it means for the enterprise

-An examination of the expanding definition of "Open Source," including the emerging notion of "Enterprise Open Source"

-The inescapable reality of today's complex IT environments -- mixed operating systems, mixed licenses, multiple vendors, and budget pressures -- and how Centric CRM 4.0 is designed to integrate into those environments

-Architectural considerations for true Enterprise Open Source solutions including security, scalability, flexibility, ease of deployment and maintenance, and development discipline

Attendees should leave this presentation with a general understanding of some of the larger trends and issues within the overall Enterprise Open Source application space, and a particular understanding of how Centric CRM is designed from the ground up with those issues in mind.

The Most Distinguished Conference Faculty of the Year

This year's conference will feature more than 100 distinguished faculty members who are the world's top celebrity experts in their fields, presenting more than 96 sessions and power panels in three distinct themes: SOA Web Services, Enterprise Open Source, and Real-World AJAX. The conference offers seven simultaneous tracks in two information-packed days.

The conference faculty includes Andy Astor, co-founder and CEO of EnterpriseDB; Jeff Barr, SOA program manager of Amazon.com; Brian Behlendorf, founder of Collabnet; Steve Benfield, CTO of Agentis Software; Dave Chappell, SOA expert and chief technology evangelist of Sonic Software; Si Chen, founder of Open Source Strategies; Christophe Coenraets, Ajax-Flex Integration guru of Adobe; Shaun Connolly, product management vice president of JBoss; Dr. Mark M. Davydov, internationally known expert of SOA and Web Services; Christian Donner, senior technical architect of Molecular; Jean-Jacques Dubray, NetWeaver architect of SAP; Yakov Fain, editor of Java Developer's Journal and the co-author of the upcoming book "Rich Internet Applications with Adobe Flex and Java: Secrets of the Masters"; John Fallows, author and Ajax evangelist of Oracle; Dan Foody, CTO of Actional; Zak Greant, leading Free Software and Open Source evangelist; Kevin Hakman, co-founder of Tibco's General Interface; Dion Hinchcliffe, editor of Web 2.0 Journal and the upcoming book Real-World Ajax: Secrets of the Masters; Simon Horwith, editor of ColdFusion Developer's Journal; Jonas Jacobi, author and Java evangelist of Oracle; Ajit Jaokar, leading Web 2.0 evangelist; Werner Keil, software architect specializing in Java and Microsoft technologies; Mike Kochanik, vice president of CollabNet; Eugene Kuznetsov, leading SOA and XML pioneer; Jason Levitt, technical evangelist of Yahoo Developer Network; Joe Lichtenberg, vice president of Bowstreet; Morgan Lim, co-founder of open source company RaptorHead; David S. Linthicum, a well-known author and SOA expert; Paul Lipton, well-known SOA evangelist and senior architect at CA; James McGovern, an industry thought leader in SOA; Aaron Mulder, CTO of Chariot Solutions; Eric Newcomer, CTO of Iona Technologies; Duane Nickull, chair of OASIS SOA RM Technical Committee; Jim Phalen, Flash and rich client expert and vice president of Stream57; Eric Pulier, CEO of Digital Evolution; Victor Rasputnis, well-known speaker and expert on SOA technologies; Anil Saldhana, chair of Apache Scout Project and top trainer at JBoss; James Schweitzer, open source specialist of IBM; Alan Shimel, a member of Open Source Snort Rules Consortium Board of Directors; Bruce Snyder, a founding member of Apache Geronimo and SOA expert; Anatole Tartakovsky, CTO of Computer Technology, Inc. and Ajax/Flex expert; Eero Teerikorpi, CEO of Emic Networks; Jason Van Zyl, chair of Apache Maven PMC; Shaun Walker, founder and president of Perpetual Motion Interactive Systems and ASP.NET expert; Tony Wasserman, executive director of the Center for Open Source Investigation and professor at Carnegie Mellon West; Coach Wei, founder and CTO of Nexaweb; Michael Wheaton, SOA expert of Sun Microsystems; Chip Wilson, CTO of Geniant; Peter Yared, founder and CEO of Active Grid; Michael Juntao Yuan, SOA and Java expert of JBoss, Inc.