The Application Partner Business Council held its annual member meeting on the day before Progress' AP Kickoff a month ago. Our membership has surged to twenty companies and they had lively discussions during the half-day meeting in Palm Beach. The following is a summary with links to details:

Members with SaaS agreements talk about licensing and pricing

How to price SaaS and how that affects the PSC licensing portion was the main topic of discussion. We had a few attendees with solid experience in determining the right customer price point and how to calculate PSC's portion. All the APBC members were very interested and their questions were met with candid, timely answers.

Read and particpate in the current online discussion about SaaS licensing in this APBC Forum topic.

Support pricing and profitability presentation

The exciting part of our annual meeting was provided by Paul Hernandez-Cuebas of Integrated Management Solutions and his presentation on managing support costs and profitability. Paul has a unique approach for making sure his customers are happy with the cost of support while still enjoying a significant profit margin and and a staff highly incented on retention.

Even though this is effectively a trade secret and a competitive advantage, Paul shared his methods, tools and actual numbers with the assembled APBC members so the benefits of handling support this way were available to all the attendees. The results would please any business owner: over 90% retention, more than 50% profit margin and employees who are focused on pleasing the customer while remaining profitable.

Topics for APBC's 2009 webinars and meetings

The annual face-to-face meeting in Jan brought many AP companies together to network and discuss the challenges their businesses face in 2009. The room was full of CEOs and executives from various application partners. They were all interested in how the others were doing, what approaches they were using to survive and thrive in a downturn, and everyone helped build a strong list of topics.

This topic list will be used by the APBC program committee to decide what webinars we'll have during 2009. Look for the schedule to be announced soon. Companies with strong experience in each area will be presenting on that topic and APBC members will have the opportunity to ask questions.

View the 2009 program agenda and schedule

PSC layoffs and the cancellation of Exchange 2009

No doubt you've heard that PSC had a second round of layoffs just weeks ago. Knowing the APBC members would want the real story on what happened, why it occured and how it will affect PSC and the application partners, we secured a meeting with Jerry Kelly and Derek Ross to press them for answers to your questions.

The meeting cleared the air about the extent of the layoffs, how the subsequent changes would affect us Progress application partners, and whether or not the cancellation of Exchange this year would affect any other events.

The questions you submitted and the important answers Progress provided are available for all APBC members in this APBC Forum topic.

About the APBC

The Application Partner Business Council is a trade association for companies who develop software applications serving vertical market businesses and companies who provide related services to customers using those vertical market business applications. The APBC is a business-oriented non-profit organization, not a technical one. While most members use the Progress OpenEdge tools in their development, the AP Business Council exists to share experiences in the business of developing, selling, and supporting software rather than the technical details.

How to join the Application Partner Business Council

If you want to network with your business peers and hear about how they have tackled the same business challenges facing you today, we encourage you to apply for APBC membership by visiting our join page or contacting This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .