Editor's note: What follows is the complete transcript of the opening remarks delivered by Anders Johnsson at SharePoint Leaership Forum 2012.

"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.  I am Anders Johnsson, Bamboo Solutions' Chairman of the Board.  As your host today, it is my pleasure to welcome you to the inaugural SharePoint Leadership Forum. 

Like many of you, Bamboo has spent the past ten years dedicated to working with and extending the native capabilities of the Microsoft SharePoint platform.  Having worked with thousands of customers worldwide, the management team at Bamboo paused at the beginning of 2012 to collect our thoughts, and to consider how Bamboo could better serve as a Thought Leader within the SharePoint community.   A number of important observations came out of that analysis, and chief among them was the belief that that we should host a Leadership Forum event in the D.C. area.  The task we set for ourselves was to assemble a group of compelling speakers who are recognized around the globe as SharePoint Thought Leaders in key business areas, and to create a forum for discussion between these noted experts and all of you who have gathered here today.

Over the next several hours, you'll hear timely and informative presentations covering a variety of diverse topics including Office 15, SharePoint mobility, Social Media, Project Management, SharePoint Maturity, and the notion of 'build versus buy' regarding SharePoint functionality.  And from our keynote speaker, Dan Holme, you'll hear about his real-world experiences running SharePoint deployments in support of the Olympic Games.  Collaboration is our overarching theme today, and by bringing together under one umbrella a group of notable speakers who are as diverse as the topics they'll address, we aim to underscore the importance of collaboration.

We also recognize the importance and the presence of a 'SharePoint Journey,' a common path that exists between all organizations that choose SharePoint as their platform for online collaboration. No matter which leg of the SharePoint journey a given organization is on, we've learned that their trip will be fast and exciting.  With the imminent release of Office -and SharePoint- 2013, we at Bamboo have rededicated ourselves to an ideal that we're calling "The Bamboo Way."  It's an ideal that describes the commitment of our company and partners to help guide organizations safely, successfully, and profitably along their SharePoint journey. 

The SharePoint experts you'll hear from today all represent different interests.  What they share in common is that they are all trusted partners of Bamboo, and they firmly believe -as we do- that SharePoint is the finest enterprise platform available for collaboration and content management on the market.  We hope to reinforce this belief in all of you today, and to provide you with a variety of thought-provoking approaches for collaboration using SharePoint.

Thank You."

Complete coverage of SharePoint Leadership Forum 2012:

• Greetings from SharePoint Leadership Forum 2012 in Washington, D.C.!
• SPLF 2012: Anders Johnsson's Opening Remarks
• SPLF: Rob Manfredi's 'Accelerating Application Development on SharePoint'
• SPLF 2012: Mark Miller's 'SharePoint & Social'
• SPLF 2012: Tim Cermak's 'Maximize Project 2010 with SharePoint 2010 for PM Success'
• SPLF 2012: Barry Jinks' 'The Implications of Integrating Mobile Devices'
• SPLF 2012: Sadie Van Buren's 'SharePoint Maturity Model'
• SPLF 2012 Keynote: Dan Holme's 'Bringing Home the Gold: SharePoint in Action at the London Olympics
• SPLF 2012: Ed Hild Introduces 'the New Microsoft Office and SharePoint 2013'
• SPLF 2012: Anders Johnsson's Closing Remarks
• Photographing SharePoint Leadership Forum 2012