In this role, technology-veteran Dorbala will leverage his more than a decade of enterprise technology product management experience to lead Vertafore’s product management efforts, refining the company’s strategy and expanding its breadth of offerings to the insurance ecosystem. Dorbala reports directly to Euan Menzies, president and chief executive officer at Vertafore.

“Customer feedback has always driven innovation at Vertafore,” said Menzies. “Through Sharath’s extensive experience and proven leadership skills, we will continue to drive our business priorities and realize a clear path to serving our customers and setting the pace in the insurance industry. We look forward to Sharath’s contributions not only to our senior leadership team, but to the company overall.”

After spending a number of years as an engineer and architect for multiple business-to-business technology companies, Dorbala transitioned into product management when he joined Oracle in 2004. Dorbala then spent nearly nine years at Amdocs, a global company with revenue of $3 billion in 2010, most recently as vice president of corporate strategy and development. In this role, he demonstrated his capacity to lead global product strategy and management teams for product portfolios with revenues in excess of several hundred million dollars, in addition to identifying strategic opportunities and improving Amdocs’ competitive position.

“My role at Vertafore allows me the opportunity to shape the next generation of products to serve the insurance industry,” said Dorbala. “Innovation is a top priority, and I look forward to contributing my knowledge of technology best practices and putting them in play at Vertafore.”

MVP Nation is a new community event in the small and medium business (SMB) channel that will connect three important communities in one place at one time.

These communities are:

1. Microsoft MVPs- The best of the best, these guys are so good that they do not even work for Microsoft but MS has recognized them for being the absolute experts on their variety of products.

2. Community members, channel partners, consultants, and members of the public will be in attendance to learn from the  infamous MVPs.

3. Community sponsors that want your input on new technologies. Focus group anyone?

Why attend you ask? Well, here a just a few reasons:

Reason#1

This isn’t just any old tech conference

MVP Nation brings together a unique network of community members. You have the elite experts, the consultants, and community vendors that are asking YOUR input on what you would like to see next.

Reason#2

Innovative Speakers

The speakers at MVP nation are the best in their class. They will be covering subjects from best practices for the upcoming years all the way to creating you own private cloud and avoiding the bumpy ride!

Reason#3

Grade A beefy content

Relevant, in depth, high quality content that might just blow your socks off! You will leave this conference with immediate applicable how to knowledge. check out the Agenda here: http://www.smbnationevents.com/Agenda.aspx

Reason#4

Keynotes that frame the future

They are dynamic and enlightening. We refer to them as the elite experts, as they are the best in their game.

Reason#5

Hear from the experts on stage and off stage

There will be 100+ MVPs roaming the halls like any other attendee, making them readily available to press hands with.

Reason#6

NETWORKING

You will have the unprecedented chance to network with the experts, consultancy owners, and the vendors! As well as the usual exhibit hall networking experience, you will have the option of attending evening networking parties with free delicious food and beverage and live music.

Who should attend?

Mid & high level IT professionals

IT consultancy owners

Microsoft partner consultants

Small business specialists

To learn more about attending this star studded event, MVP Nation (Seattle, WA, March 3rd & 4th, 2011) visit www.mvpnation.org or call 1-888-SMB-NAT1. Register by Feb. 28th and you can save $100 off your ticket price taking it down to $299!

About SMB Nation

SMB Nation is a publishing and events company, targeted at the small and medium business (SMB) channel partner/reseller/consulting/VAR community. SMB Nation spreads the knowledge of SMB technology trends through its conferences, books, SMB PC magazine, online services, and world-wide seminars, workshops and accredited Pocket MBA certificate (an academic partnership with Aspen University). As an active participant in the technology community, SMB Nation has a long history of enthusiastic advocacy and evangelism. The SMB Nation tribe exceeds 45,000 followers worldwide.

The company was founded in 1999 as Matthew Brelsford Associates and became SMB Nation in early 2003, to promote the books and consulting services of Harry Brelsford, the author of a successful series of books written for the global SMB IT consulting and reseller community. Initially the community conversations focused on Microsoft small Business Sever (SBS) but has expanded into SMB infrastructure alternatives, Voice-over-IP (VoIP), cloud computing and business technology consulting best practices Harry Brelsford is a popular conference speaker on SMB technology consulting topics and sits on several advisory boards in the SMB technology industry. He also serves as the Dean of the School of Technology at Aspen University. .

Today, SMB Nation conferences, seminars and workshops bring forward-thinking IT consultants, technologies and vendor sponsors together, sparking new opportunities in the SMB space. Being THE information source for SMB technologists worldwide, SMB Nation delivers complete business solutions to help consultants and resellers better manage their business, technological and marketing needs. Whether it’s delivered in print, online, or in person, everything SMB Nation produces reflects our unshakeable positive belief in the power of information to spur a profitable global community. Visit www.smbnation.com

“There’s no denying that Kirkland has a need for this kind of speed,” notes Mayor Joan McBride.  “We are a high-tech, innovative community and Google’s high speed service will make our teachers and students, employers and employees and computer users more efficient.”

Google’s Kirkland campus is located on 6^th Street South in the Everest neighborhood. Google’s ultra-high speed broadband network will provide Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most users have today.  The company will announce its selections by the end of this year.

Editor’s note:  I did go and nominate Kirkland, although I live in Bellevue and wish we would go after this network too.