Birthdays are a unique event. Typically it is a celebration of the birth of an individual, but today we celebrate the birth of a nation. A nation that is unlike any other nation on the planet - the United States of America!

You would think that after 234 years the USA would be well established and defined - it is not. This great country is and continues to be a "work-in-progress". Each and every generation adds to the richness. Every day we struggle to make things a little better. We are a nation of people of all colors, backgrounds, and origins. From the original Native Americans to the individual just stepping off an airplane from a foreign country for the very first time. Each and everyone adds to the great "melting pot".

The USA continues to be a beacon of hope for all who desire a better life.

In closing.... An interesting statement was made by Tony Blair (former British Prime Minister).." How many want in and how many want out?..."   He was talking about the USA - THINK ABOUT IT!

Today is a day that one just cannot let pass by without saying something. It is Memorial Day here in the USA. This is the day we all take time and remember the men and women who have paid the ultimate sacrifice to defend democracy. They did this not only for us (Americans) but also for many other citizens of planet earth. Even today they continue to do this in far away lands.

FYI: I ran accross an interesting statistic a few days ago - only 10% of the WW II Verterans are still alive. They are often described as "The Greatest Generation". Take time to get to know them before they are (all) gone.

Let us remember what they did and continue to hope for the day nobody has to do it any more.

So WHO cares if I'm sitting around at South Station - nobody.... However, I am on-line writing this Blog Entry and thought I would share how I am doing it.

NO - it is NOT a Wireless Hot-Spot.. It is my BlackBerry Storm(one),  HP laptop, and a piece of software called "Tether" (was called tetherberry). It is really slick and the speed is fantastic. So good I can do an RDP session to our server(s), etc.

Tether is available for several platforms. Click here to see/try the BlackBerry version.

Thinking back over the last few days, while sitting at the Denver airport with a couple of other partners waiting for a flight home, several things popped into my head:

  A - The overall attendance by individual partners was down over last year.

  B - The total number of individuals from partnerships was also down (one or two where there may have been more in past years).

 The reason for fewer SalesLogix BP's was obvious:

  A - It was planned as a Sales and Marketing event only (NO technical track this year).
  B - The SalesLogix Partner Community now has "BootCamp".

 BootCamp is something that existed in the early days of SalesLogix. An gathering of just SalesLogix folks and typically Technically Centric. Last year in August, the first of the new week long SalesLogix BootCamps was held at the Scottsdale Resort and Conference Center. It was so successful that the 2nd annual BootCamp is now scheduled for October 24 thru October 29 at the same location - Scottsdale Resort and Conference Center. So all you SalesLogix Partners out there, mark your calendar now!

 One thing that I thought was slick at Insights was to see a SalesLogix prototype of an iPhone application that does a real-time (no local or off-line storage) access of SalesLogix via the sData Portal. Then along came a good friend Michael Reischer of m-Computers (in Berlin, DE) with HIS iPhone implementation! It also uses the (same) sData Portal for it's real-time data feed. Check out the thread on this on the SalesLogix Community. My opinion.. I really like Michael's ;-) They are planning on "tweeking" it so that it will look and act properly on the iPad as well.

With the LAST Insights over we now have the FIRST combined Partner/Customer conference - Summit 2011 - In Washington, DC at the Gaylord National on July 10 thru July 15. Some Partners will remember this as the site of Insights 2008. The facility was brand new and only open for about a month or so when we "hit it"! The conference will be broken down into two components:

  A - Partners Monday thru Wednesday (July 10-13)
  B - Customers Wednesday thru Friday (July 13-15)

It's the 2nd day of the annual Sage Insights Conference here in Denver.... and it's also the LAST Insights conference.

 What did I just post?.. - yes, it IS the last Sage Insights Conference. Next year (2011) both Sage Partners AND Sage Customers will be getting together in Washington, DC in July at the National Gaylord for the first combined conference - Summit 2011.

Now that we have that out of the way, It's now official, SalesLogix In the Cloud is here. Jump over to Larry Ritter's post in the SalesLogix Community for additional Info.

As more interestings happen at Insights 2010 we will update our blog post.