From the Stage to the Booth: Thoughts on SailPoint Navigate 2025

Well, that’s a wrap. Navigate 2025 (Austin version) has come to a close. I have a few reflections. 

Two Hotels, One Hot Walk

Let’s get the elephant in the room(s) out of the way. Two hotels? Come on, man. No bueno. A morning in one, an afternoon in another, a walk through a construction site at 35 degrees Celsius in between? Not pleasant. If you caught my presentation at the Expo West, let me say this doesn’t even get a 14% mark from me. SailPoint please fix. 

Back on Stage — This Time as a Partner

A lot of great stuff happened even with the hot walks though. And speaking of presentations, I did get a chance to talk about re-imagining connectivity during the conference. Thank you all who attended! I recognized quite a few folks and wow were there a lot of faces in the crowd I didn’t know. Our King of Product (Product VP Rob Doucette) took some cool pictures of the crowd and I think I’ll take his suggestion and frame one of them. That was the largest Navigate crowd I’ve ever had for one of my tech sessions, and this was the 12th Navigate I’ve spoken at. Very cool. 

Doing a presentation from the other side of the glass was actually very cool as well. Lots of nostalgia for me. I worked at SailPoint for 7 years give or take and presented at a number of Navigates. This was the first time I’ve done it as a partner and it’s one I’m going to remember distinctly. 

Connecting the Dots at the Booth

The theme of connectivity wasn’t just a hit at the expo either. We had a ton of people at the booth and I gave countless demos of our new connector technology. There were a lot of amazed faces and one of the big obstacles for READI is just getting people to overcome their disbelief. We’ve been told for 2 decades how bad connectivity is. How expensive. And our new way of doing it shatters all of those expectations.

10-Year Projects, Solved in Months

One of our prospects told us that they’re connecting 60 ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems. Right now, each one takes 6-8 weeks for their team to connect. They’ve done 7. A little quick math will tell you that it’s a 10 year project. They jokingly described it as generating generational wealth for someone, and you can see why. Oh, and once they’re done those 60, they have a bunch of other apps too… I’m really glad we’re going to be able get them connected at a fraction of the time. Another one of our prospects told us that this way by far, hands down, the most important new tech at this year’s Navigate.  Great comment, thank you, we definitely agree. 

Driverless Adventures

I also had my first experience in a driverless Uber. Short version: cool picture of the car driving itself but that’s a tech that needs some maturing. Dropping us 3 blocks away from our destination in the 35 degree Celsius heat was… something.

Thank You, Austin

I had the chance to catch up with a lot of friends and colleagues old and new while I was in Austin, and to all of you I give a big hearty thank you. Thank you for the kind words, the hugs, the memories, the smiles, the drinks, the food, all of it. I can’t wait for Navigate 2026. Maybe then it’ll all be in the same building? 

A person should hope. 

– Dave

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