Ronald Bongo - Open Source Executive

Ron Bongo, CEO and founder of Corra Technology, Inc. (CorraTech), has been advocating for greater adoption of open source software for almost a decade. As CEO, Ron Bongo manages CorraTech's corporate strategy, directs its management team and builds key business and strategic relationships for the company. In 2002, he drove the company into open source software helping clients implement web content management and ecommerce systems. In 2004, CorraTech became the first to partner with the first commercial open source business application, SugarCRM. In 2006, CorraTech was the first consulting firm to join the Open Solutions Alliance, a non-profit, vendor-neutral consortium dedicated to promoting vendor interoperability and adoption of comprehensive open solutions. The OSA was a thriving organization, which recently merged with the OW2 Consortium.

As a new member at the OSA, Ron Bongo said, "In our work with more than 70 global companies, we have seen first hand the growing need for interoperability between applications in order for the true benefits of open source to be realized. The OSA represents a powerful body of technology innovators working together to solve this problem and we are excited to bring our talents and resources to this effort as a new member." Since 2004 Ron Bongo has driven CorraTech to triple digit growth rates.

In presenting the economic benefits of open source solutions, Mr. Bongo has quite frequently pointed out that license fees of commercial open source application software typically runs 20% cheaper than comparable proprietary software. "Imagine what you can do with the 80% savings and flexibility gains with open source. You can integrate more deeply, you can customize to deliver real innovation and you can build strategic advantage into the overall technology project. " One of Ron Bongo and CorraTech’s clients estimates open source CRM saved his Fortune 1000 company hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Prior to CorraTech, Mr. Bongo directed North American business development for SymphonyRPM, providing real time performance management solutions to key vertical markets, particularly financial services. He introduced Symphony to SunGard, which eventually purchased the Symphony division. Prior to SymphonyRPM, Mr. Bongo was founder and CEO of Financialpro.com, spearheading the early adoption of an emerging web based relationship management solution for financial institutions. Prior to that, as a management consultant, he oversaw high profile projects for Fortune 1000 corporations, such as Honeywell, ABB, Toys R Us, Consolidated Edison and Matsushita, implementing seven figure cost-reduction strategies using software and services. Ron Bongo received his Bachelors degree in Economics from Gettysburg College.