Speaker Bios
Bashyam Anant
Director of Product Management,
Flexera Software
Bashyam Anant is a seasoned product leader and general manager. He leads product management for Flexera’s backoffice solutions for software producers and high tech device manufacturers. Previously, Bashyam was Director of Product Management for Yahoo!'s Audience Products Platform. Over the past decade, he has managed and grown five "mini businesses" based on a dozen award winning infrastructure and application software products to over $100M in combined annual revenues. In his prior career in management consulting, he advised leadership teams at companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Boeing, Motorola, 3Com, Qwest and Hughes. His business and product strategy articles have appeared in many professional publications.
Michael Beare
Microsoft
Michael Beare oversees the main Microsoft customer license management program, the Software Asset Management (SAM) program. This important global program engages with over 50,000 customers every year and has two distinct aspects: License Reviews and SAM Optimization Assessments. Michael has more than ten years of experience in the Microsoft volume licensing business and is very passionate about customers obtaining the full benefits of their software investments. Over the last few years, he led the effort to develop and launch the SAM Optimization model. He also participates in the Microsoft SAM technology initiatives that enable customer license management. Michael was born in Montevideo, Uruguay. He holds a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the U.S. Air Force Academy and a Master in Business Administration from California State University.
Bob Brandenstein
Director of Technology Management,
Siemens PLM
Bob Brandenstein is the Director of Technology Management for Siemens PLM Software. In this role, Bob is responsible for technology selection, product strategy with respect to platforms and managing partner relationships used within Siemens PLM product development. Bob spearheaded the evaluation and selection of FLEXlm for license management and continues to be involved in licensing development and product management. Bob has been involved with computer technology and software development for over 40 years and has held several positions in Development and Marketing within Siemens PLM Software for the past 20 years.
Manjeet Chocker
Oracle
Manjeet Chocker represents Oracle's License Management Services Organization. Over the past nine years she has held several roles within Oracle LMS that include Manager of a regional segment, Senior Manager of the North America Customer Team and recently transitioned into Senior Manager of Operations for North America. During her tenure, Manjeet has directly engaged in license reviews of Fortune 500, Telecom, Retail and Manufacturing customers with complex systems environments. With these engagements, Manjeet adopted a personal philosophy to promote license education as a necessary tool to aid in bridging the gap between license compliance and customer satisfaction.
Sean Donahue
Strategic Partner Alliances,
Microsoft
Sean Donahue drives strategic partner alliances as part of the System Center Alliance team at Microsoft. In this role he works closely with ISV’s and other key partners who develop solutions that build on top of and assist in the deployment of the products across System Center. Sean has a significant focus on the virtualization solutions offered in today’s market and the growth of Desktop Virtualization. Prior to Microsoft Sean worked as the head of Worldwide Training and Certification for Softricity, creators of the original Application Virtualization solution that is known today as Microsoft App-V.
Jim Geisman
Founder and Principal,
Software Pricing Partners
Jim Geisman is Founder and Principal of Software Pricing Partners. The firm was started in 1982 and, since 1987, has focused solely on software pricing. (More information can be found at the firm’s website, www.SoftwarePricing.com.)
Since then, Jim has worked with many emerging and established software companies by helping them solve some of their toughest pricing problems. His company is helping a number of established and emerging software companies make the transition to the on-demand (SaaS) pricing model. He has also helped a number of companies price, structure and negotiate "the big deals".
He has written extensively on software pricing and is widely quoted in the trade press. He is a frequent speaker at SoftSummit and other trade conferences and has consulted internationally on issues of software pricing and deal structuring.
Jim has been a co-founder, director, advisor or mentor to early stage companies. He sits on the Board of the Professional Pricing Society. He holds degrees in electrical engineering and business from Tufts and Harvard, respectively.
Adel Hanna
Enterprise System Architect,
EMC Corporation
Adel Hanna is an enterprise system architect at EMC corporation. He was educated at Alexandria University (BS, 1993), New York University (MS, 1997), and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Post Grad, 2002). He holds professional certifications from CISSP, Microsoft, Redhat and Sun Microsystems. Since he joined EMC in 2005, he has designed projects that had significant impacts on EMC business, such as Secure Service Credential for Symmetrix, EMC remote support Gateway, ConnectEMC and Simple Licensing Automatic Activation projects.
Mika Harviala
Symantec
Mr. Mika Harviala has been involved in systems and asset management for 22 years, with the last 12 years at Symantec Corporation. His current role is Manager of Symantec’s Global SAM Partner and Tools Program within the License Compliance organization, where he supports customers and partner companies to facilitate their work in assessing deployments of Symantec software. Prior to his current role in License Compliance, he was a software engineer working on automated solutions for performing software inventories. Mika is also active in many industry wide SAM initiatives and working groups.
Yan Huang
Director of Software Development,
CPU Tech
Yan Huang is the director of software development at CPU Tech. She is responsible for developing embedded software and software development tools that enables and manages the Acalis processor security capabilities. She joined CPU Tech in 2000 and has more than 10 years of experience in software development and defense electronic system engineering. She earned a bachelor of engineering and a master of engineering, as well as an MBA. She can be contacted at y.huang@cputech.com.
Krishnan Iyer
Senior Director of Customer Support Services,
Invensys Operations Management
Krishnan Iyer is the Director, Global Customer Support at Invensys Operations Management. Krishnan has over 22 years of experience in the technology domain. He has a MS Computer Science from Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, FL and a MBA from Pepperdine University in Malibu, CA.
J Ryan Kenny
Product Marketing,
CPU Tech
J Ryan Kenny is a product manager at CPU Tech. He is responsible for developing security requirements and certification roadmaps for the Acalis line of secure embedded processors. He joined CPU Tech in February 2009 and has more than 10 years of experience in defense and space electronics in the US Air Force and defense systems engineering. He graduated from the US Air Force Academy and completed an MSEE and MBA from California State Northridge and Santa Clara University, respectively. He can be contacted at rkenny@cputech.com.
Vikram Koka
Vice President of R&D,
Flexera Software
Vikram Koka is the Vice President, R&D at Flexera Software. He is responsible for engineering for the FlexNet Producer Suite for High-Tech Manufacturers. Prior to Flexera, Vikram was the Chief Architect for Macrovision across all its product lines, including the DRM, video and game distribution offerings, in addition to software licensing. Vikram has held senior engineering or technical management positions at large companies such as Silicon Graphics (SGI), and LSI Logic as well as startups such as CellMania and SmartDB. Prior to Flexera, Vikram’s background includes mobile, ecommerce, enterprise applications (both hosted and on-premise), databases and distributed applications. Vikram has an MS in electrical and computer engineering from the University of California at Santa Barbara, and a BS in electronics & communications engineering from Osmania University, Hyderabad. Vikram currently has 4 patents pending and was one of the early contributors to the GNU Debugger (GDB), a popular open source debugger.
Rene Kolga
Senior Product Manager,
Symantec
Rene Kolga possesses over 15 years of professional IT experience in the areas of product management, customer support, quality assurance and development. At Symantec he manages multiple products involving five development teams throughout the world, covering discovery, inventory, usage metering, software delivery, client backup, reporting and security-endpoint management integration areas. Rene was also involved in numerous Altiris-Symantec integration projects. Prior to Symantec, Rene was a Customer Support Manager for Previo where he built and managed support team in Europe. Rene was also the Test Lead at Stac and worked extensively with partners like HP, Miramar and others. Rene has a bachelor of computer science degree from the Tallinn University of Technology (Estonia) and MBA in International Business from the University of Utah.
Amy Konary
Research Director,
IDC
Amy Mizoras Konary is a Research Director with IDC focusing on software pricing, licensing, and delivery research. In this role, Ms. Konary is responsible for providing coverage of software go-to-market trends including volume license programs, evolving license models, global price management, and licensing technologies through market analysis, research and consulting. In her coverage of software maintenance, subscription, electronic software distribution and licensing technologies, Ms. Konary has been instrumental in forecasting future market size and growth. Ms. Konary was also the lead analyst for IDC's coverage of software as a service (SaaS) for eight years prior to focusing exclusively on pricing, licensing, and delivery.
Since Joining IDC in 1998, Ms. Konary has received a number of honors and awards, including IDC Research Quality Awards in 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2004, as well as IDC’s 2002 Analyst-of-the-Year. In 2005, Ms. Konary was honored with IDC’s James Peacock award for research excellence, IDC’s highest honor.
Prior to joining IDC, Ms. Konary worked in marketing at a mid-tier software provider. Ms. Konary holds a B.A. from Lehigh University, where she majored in Science and Technical Writing and minored in Environmental Science.
Toby Pieper
Vice President of Engineering,
Flexera Software
Toby Pieper is Vice President of Engineering for Flexera Software with responsibility for the FlexNet Suite – On Demand product (formerly known a SubscribeNet). Mr. Pieper has played a lead role in the development of this product since its inception in 1996. Prior to this, he held technical positions at SBE Inc. and NCR. Mr. Pieper holds a degree in Computer Science from the University of California, San Diego - Revelle College.
Brent Pietrzak
Vice President of Client Services,
Flexera Software
Brent Pietrzak has 12 years of experience in the technology industry, with a focus on the delivery of software and services to Fortune 1000 companies. As Vice President of Client Services for Flexera, Brent has responsibility for all pre-sales consulting, license optimization services and technical account management in North America and Asia Pacific. He has held similar roles with Aravo Solutions and Intraware where he established world class SaaS delivery and customer care models. Prior to fulfilling these service focused roles, Brent held various engineering and pre-sales management roles at these companies and Visa International.
Behshad Rejai
Director of Software Engineering,
Synopsys
Behshad Rejai is the director of software engineering at Synopsys responsible for Licensing, Software Development Tools, Corporate Quality, and Program Management. Ms. Rejai has over 25 years of experience in the software industry. Prior to joining Synopsys in 1999, she worked at General Motors Research Lab, Rockwell International, and Boeing. Behshad Holds a Master of Science in Computer Science from University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Andy Roth
Director of Engineering Services/Global Product Solutions,
Tekelec
Andy Roth is Director of Engineering Services at Tekelec. He has had an extensive career in software and systems development and design including combat systems, sonar, battlefield communications, telecommunications and information technology. In his almost 14 years at Tekelec, Andy has been responsible for development tools, configuration management, engineering infrastructure for a globally distributed R&D organization, and Customer facing documentation. He has been a key contributor to numerous enterprise-wide business process initiatives including the current transition to a software-centric model. Andy lives in rural North Carolina with his wife, Karen. He is very proud of their daughter, Samantha, who is pursuing her doctorate at Colorado State University.
Steve Schmidt
Vice President of Product Management,
Flexera Software
Steve Schmidt is the Vice President of Product Management at Flexera Software, responsible for product planning, positioning and market delivery of Flexera’s industry-leading licensing and installation solutions, including the FlexNet, InstallShield and AdminStudio product lines. Prior to Flexera, Steve held VP of Product Management positions at Macrovision, in both the Software Business Unit as well as the Distribution and Commerce Business Unit. Before Macrovision, Steve was the Director of Product Management at InstallShield Software Corporation. Steve began his 20 year technology management career running global IT projects for Procter & Gamble's Advanced Technology Group. Steve received a Bachelor of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Notre Dame and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
Keith Sommers
Sr. Director of Operations Support, Customer Services,
BigBand Networks
Keith Sommers started with BigBand in 2002 when it was just a Start-up and he worked to build their Customer Services Organization reporting directly to the COO. At BigBand, Keith has instituted an operating philosophy to support Mission Critical product deployments in the worlds largest Service Providers' networks. Keith led rollout of TL 9000 Quality Management System for the Customer Services Dept. As the Dept. Coordinator, he represents Customer Services in Product Lifecycle Process (new product development), and is responsible for operational and administrative support of the Customer Services Organization which includes all reporting, maintenance scheduling, Root Cause Analysis reporting, and process development.
Keith has 29 years of experience in the Telecommunications industry and previously worked for Excite@Home for 5 years and Cox Communications for 16 years.
Don Turtle
Engineering Manager,
Flexera Software
Donald Turtle joined the FlexeraSoftware Engineering team with the Intraware acquisition in January of this year. Throughout his 10 year tenure as a member of the Engineering team, Don's contributions have included the design, development and implementation of a wide variety of custom software delivery and license generation and delivery solutions.
Tim Willey
Senior Director of Pricing & Licensing,
Symantec
Tim has responsibility for managing Symantec’s Pricing & Licensing Strategies, Policies and Programs globally. This includes developing new approaches to simplifying Symantec’s Pricing and Licensing experience, and developing Customer and Partner focused value propositions across the product portfolio. In response to common issues from Customers / Partners around a need to improve software deployment tracking and reporting, Tim’s team also includes a group looking at enabling SAM through Software ID Tagging. Symantec is currently a board member of Tagvault.org, which is a not-for-profit organization set-up to enable ISO-standard Software ID Tagging. Prior to Symantec, Tim spent over 10 years working in Strategy Consulting in Europe, the US and APAC, providing strategic advice to Companies in the Technology sector.
David Znidarsic
Vice President of Technology,
Flexera Software
David Znidarsic is Vice President of Technology and a member of the executive staff at Flexera Software. He has been in the technology industry for 24 years, the last 8 at Flexera Software. Most recently David has been a spokesman for the transformation of software licensing in the age of virtualization as well as a key contributor to Flexera SOftware's high-tech manufacturing solution.