Open Solutions Alliance Announces Customer Forum Series

SAN FRANCISCO, July 11, 2007 – The Open Solutions Alliance (OSA), a nonprofit, vendor-neutral consortium dedicated to driving interoperability and adoption of comprehensive open solutions, today announced its worldwide Customer Forum Series. The Series gives CIOs and business-level executives a unique opportunity to share and learn from others the key issues and best practices for the interoperability of opens solutions. This is expected to result in further collaboration among vendors to deliver open solutions that continue to improve customer experiences and business performance.

Each Forum is a structured half-day event, with opportunity for discussion and networking. The Series kicks off July 20, 2007 in Minneapolis, Minn.

“The OSA is in a unique position to provide a neutral forum where IT executives can come to share their interoperability requirements once rather than multiple times with individual vendors and to be confident that vendors will work together to deliver for them,” said Barry Klawans, OSA board member and chief technology officer at JasperSoft. “The OSA Customer Forum Series will also give attendees an opportunity to learn more about how open solutions can increase business efficiencies and to help to inform and answer questions for CIOs deploying open solutions today.”

IT executives often have to share their software requirements, (specifically for interoperability) repeatedly with multiple vendors, which leaves little time for learning about the latest developments from across the industry. This process can become a burden for these executives who need to be able to share a core set of informed needs just once and move their attention back to daily operations while vendors together attack these requirements. The OSA Customer Forum Series will provide the venue for CIOs to be heard by a variety of vendors, to learn more about the deployment of open solutions, and for the OSA to document requirements that can be actively pursued by the members and broader open source software community.

The OSA Customer Forum Series is kicking off with three Forums in three different cities:

OSA Customer Forum Minneapolis
Host: The Open Source Technology Alliance (TOSTA)
Minneapolis Community and Technical College
July 20, 2007

OSA Customer Forum San Francisco
Hosts: JasperSoft and Palamida
Palamida Headquarters
August 23, 2007

OSA Customer Forum Philadelphia
Host: Unisys
Unisys Corporation - Executive Business Center
October 3, 2007

To register to attend a Forum or to stay up to date on the latest Forum dates and locations, please visit: http://www.opensolutionsalliance.org/Portal.do?command=Default&siteId=2&tabId=5&pageId=33

About the Open Solutions Alliance
The Open Solutions Alliance (OSA) is a nonprofit, vendor neutral consortium dedicated to driving the interoperability and adoption of comprehensive open solutions. Founded in 2007, it is supported by leading companies from around the world who are dedicated to improving interoperability among software products, resulting in integrated and rapidly deployable solutions for business users. Through cooperative action and advocacy, the OSA helps facilitate interoperability, reduce barriers to adoption and raise the awareness of open solutions in business. For more information, please visit www.OpenSolutionsAlliance.org.

###

Media Contact:
Jennifer Cloer
Page One PR
503-746-7577
Jennifer@pageonepr.com