PUG Challenge 2013: Lighting the Spark for EMEA Success

It’s been a busy few weeks for our user base, many of whom attended our biggest ever EMEA User Group conference, the EMEA PUG Challenge on November 7^th and 8^th. Held in Brussels, Belgium and hosted by the Independent Progress User Group (PUG), the event saw 450 delegates from 23 countries taking part in 66 sessions, 15 presentations and 4 workshop sessions over the course of two days.

As you might expect, the conference yielded a number of highlights, including everything from customer and partner-led discussions, to executive keynotes, and even our own Olf Jännsch heading up the entertainment as the lead singer of the evening band! Even so, there’s little doubt that learning played a key role in the event, and it was clear that many of the delegates benefited hugely from being able to hear from community speakers and early adopters speak about their own practical experiences. For many, the vibrancy that this community offers plays a critical role in enhancing many users’ view of Progress and the way in which they interact with its solutions. We also saw hundreds of our user base taking the opportunity to find out more about Progress and its portfolio of solutions. This meant not only engaging and finding out more about newer technologies such as Progress Rollbase and Progress Pacific, but also how they could make the most of more familiar solutions such as Corticon and OpenEdge.

The EMEA PUG Challenge was also a good opportunity for two of Progress’s executive team – CEO Phil Pead and CTO Karen Tegan Padir – to thank the existing user base for the enthusiasm and support they have shown for the business’s new strategic direction. Both travelled to Brussels for the event, and embraced the chance to meet and mingle with the PUG community, discuss their successes and answer their questions.

Phil Pead also took the opportunity to not only remark on the global reach of Progress and its solutions, but also to discuss plans for next year’s Exchange event in October 2014. Hot on the heels of last month’s highly successful conference in Boston, Pead shared details of how delegates could register for a special, discounted rate for next year’s show in Orlando, Florida.

We’d like to thank everyone who made this year’s EMEA PUG Challenge such a resounding and sparkling success, resulting in a record number of attendess and the event itself selling out. We hope that everyone attending the conference found it interesting, entertaining and informative, and, above all, we’re looking forward to hopefully seeing all of you at next year’s event to be held in either Düsseldorf or Amsterdam between the 19^th and 21^st November 2014!

For latest news about the upcoming PUG Challenge visit: https://www.facebook.com/PUGChallenge or follow #PUGChallenge on Twitter!