Building a better Borland
Published: 27 Sep 2005 15:05 BST
...stand on the side and say you should break something up, without really understanding the details of how things are linked together.
Has selling off pieces of the product line been a consideration in the past?
We think about portfolio issues all the time. It's a normal course of doing business if you're running the company properly. In my opinion, it's much ado about not much. There's been no specific plan delivered by Mr Coates or anyone else. And frankly, not a lot of new content or new thinking involved in what they've said publicly.
Some people argue that with industry consolidation, the big will get bigger, which perhaps shuts out midsize companies. What do you think?
I can tell you there are a bunch of examples where we've gone head-to-head against IBM and we've beaten them. And in one case, which was one of our largest ALM deals ever, we beat them when they were free. So there's something about really thinking about these things holistically, about a process-plus-technology message that is really compelling to some of the largest, most notable, name-brand customers on the planet. So we're getting something right.
In terms of the broader question, we believe we're clearly over the bar in terms of being big enough to be sustainable. There are a bunch of smaller competitors still offering point products in the ALM space that have got to be having a tough time of it.
Historically, you've been known as an IDE company. How difficult has the transition to the suite strategy been culturally?
Piece of cake. People change very easily. *Laughs* Of course it's hard — people build a lot of identity in the success of a specific product line. And we've spent a lot of time talking to them — it's not unlike the railways which forget they're in the transportation business. There's a huge set of problems that have yet to be solved.
One of things we're spending a bunch of time on is [working] on how we can rev up the innovation engine. It's not about putting another blue knob or red level on JBuilder. It's conceiving the role of the individual developer as part of the team.
Given the disruption, what are you focusing on?
First and foremost ALM is our growth engine, and we're focused on driving ALM revenue. Second is we are really trying to step up efforts in measuring our own success in how we make customers successful.
Third, the company over the last couple of years has undergone a huge amount of change. We've had a huge influx from different companies. We've got a bit of a melting pot right now of approaches and ideas. We've got to...combine those with the traditional Borland culture of technical excellence [and customer focus] and meld that into a new Borland culture.
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