rPath™, provider of the first platform for creating and maintaining virtual and software appliances, today announced that the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), the principal trade association for the software and digital content industry, selected rPath CTO and Founder Erik Troan to speak at its OnDemand Europe 2007 conference in Amsterdam. Troan will participate in the conference’s “Future of On Demand” Panel on Thursday, May 31, at 11:00 a.m.

SIIA OnDemand Europe is the European software industry's first comprehensive conference for enabling and delivering Software as a Service (SaaS). Delegates represent the complete SaaS ecosystem, including ISVs, platform vendors, systems integrators, venture capitalists and other influencers. The 2007 OnDemand Europe conference will be held May 30 to June 1 at the Hilton Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

Erik Troan was selected to participate in the “Future of On Demand” panel, which will be moderated by OpSource CEO Treb Ryan. During this panel, industry strategists will discuss the state of On Demand, and Troan will share his insight on the benefits of adopting a software appliance delivery model as an alternative approach to delivering SaaS value to customers.

“We see software appliances as the future of the On Demand software model, as they deliver the same simplicity to companies as SaaS, but without the associated headaches of overhauling distribution channels and application architectures,” said Erik Troan, CTO and founder of rPath. “Being chosen to participate in this forward-thinking panel further validates software appliances as an innovative and simple way for application providers to deliver SaaS value to their customers.”

rPath is the company that is pioneering the software appliance approach for application distribution and management. A software appliance is an application combined with all the system software required by the application that readily installs on industry standard hardware or in a virtualized environment. Software appliances offer an unprecedented opportunity for application providers to expand the market for their software by making it more accessible to potential buyers. Simple software is easier to sell, enabling the ISV to enter markets and open channels of distribution that were previously unavailable to them.