Progress Software - getting past "Who"?

A couple of months back I had a brief Twitter exchange with David Bressler of Progress Software (@djbressler), following a comment I'd seen from Judith Hurwitz (@jhurwitz) at Progress' analyst day regarding the lack of brand awareness that the company has out there in industry. What I said was: "Progress is a bit like Unilever - top-level brand is vanilla, sub-brands have chops". What I meant is that these days, there's little knowledge of what Progress does (a typical response is either "Who?" or possibly "oh, they used to sell a 4GL and a database in the 1990s, didn't they") - whereas there's much more recognition of brands like Sonic (SOA infrastructure), Actional (SOA management / governance), IONA (middleware, SOA infrastructure), Apama (event processing), DataXtend (data integration) and DataDirect (data connectivity, legacy application integration).

David replied that Progress is a technology company's company - which is absolutely correct: Progress has a long and successful history of providing a platform for other software vendors to embed in their application offerings. And he followed up with this blog entry, saying "We'd love for the Progress brand to have some chops, and we're trying but it's not trivial."

Well, for a few weeks I'd been meaning to write a blog post of my own exploring this - but in the general headlong rush that we've been experiencing so far this year, I'd forgotten to write that post. When I saw today's news that there's been a change at the top at Progress, though, I was finally prompted to write some thoughts down. (Thanks for the pointer Miko).

The main thought in my head all those weeks ago was that it's all very well for Progress to be a bit like Unilever - with the sub-brands (Sonic, Actional, Apama, DataDirect, and so on) having much more visibility in industry than the parent brand - as long as the company doesn't want to start pulling together broader IT and business infrastructure propositions that tie together pieces from the different brands. Unilever is well-known for owning a vast portfolio of products, many of which actually compete with others in the portfolio (Dove v Lux; or Persil v Surf, for example. The invisibility of the parent brand is fine for Unilever, but it's bad news for Progress if it wants to really make the most of its potential within enterprises (by cross-selling or bundling its products to help customers with broader opportunities, for example).

So this is the point where the company has to undergo a pretty radical shift. As reported in PCWorld, the new Progress Software CEO (formerly the COO) has established a target of doubling the company's annual revenue to around $1bn, by "reorienting sales towards multi-product suites, as well as aiming marketing messages more at business executives than IT workers" - that is, precisely what it's not currently suited to doing.

This goal makes absolute sense, and in fact it has made sense for ages. The majority of the markets where Progress' brands play are growth markets where there's real opportunity, right now; and what's more, the combination of the offerings could have real power, too.

The required shift will be no picnic, but there are worse times for Progress to be trying to make it happen. There's a new man at the top with a new broom, no doubt; and what's more, there's still a small window of opportunity open for another medium-to-large-sized specialist infrastructure software vendor to pick up business, following BEA's acquisition by Oracle a few months back. TIBCO and Software AG have recently been making much of BEA's disappearance as an "independent" infrastructure software vendor, and it's surely no coincidence that both these companies also have aspirations to reach $1bn in annual revenues (Software AG has been particularly vocal about this of late). Progress has long had the potential to join Software AG and TIBCO as a serious contender for enterprises wanting to avoid getting into bed with the MISO pack (Microsoft, IBM, SAP or Oracle) for whatever reason, but until now it just never seemed to be able to be bothered to do what was necessary.

With a new CEO at the top, it'll be fascinating to see whether Progress can move up a gear. If it succeeds, then enterprises wanting to avoid giving too much technology supplier power to the MISO pack may well have a new choice - and in a market where consolidation has recently been rampant, more choice would be refreshing for everyone.

Labels: industry, integration, Progress, SOA, Software AG, TIBCO

posted by Neil Ward-Dutton @ 9:30 AM 2 comments permalink

Software AG goes in an interesting direction for SOA governance

As part of yesterday's release of the latest iteration of its webMethods Insight product Software AG announced an OEM partnership with Progress Software. This announcement adds the Actional runtime SOA management and monitoring technology (which Progress acquired back in January 2006) to Software AG's existing Centrasite design-time governance capabilities (which were bolstered by the acquisition of Infravio in September 2006) and the runtime policy enforcement provided by its webMethods X-Broker and partner Layer 7's XML Firewall.

The incorporation of runtime SOA management and monitoring functionality into Insight is a necessary evolution of Software AG-webMethods integration strategy that we commented on just over a year ago. It's long been our position that SOA is more than a standards-based approach to software development and integration. The business value of a service-oriented initiative depends on a recognition that software services are experienced, just like their real-world analogues. The quality of that experience depends on a governance approach that extends throughout the service lifecycle, where the contracts defined when services are designed are subsequently enforced through policies once they are deployed and running - and where runtime metrics are captured to provide insight into the service level quality that is actually exeprienced. Furthermore, those metrics can be used to inform and support change management processes, so closing the SOA lifecycle loop.

Whilst the announcement doesn't come as any great surprise, the source of the runtime management and monitoring functionality does. When Oracle confirmed it's intention to acquire BEA, I said:

It [the acquisition] leaves some of the other bigger specialist players - TIBCO, SoftwareAG (and to a lesser extent Progress and Red Hat) in an interesting position. On the one hand they will be more attractive, particularly for SOA and BPM, to customers looking for an application-independent infrastructure offering.

Software AG has gone to a potential competitor for the mantle of best-of-breed, specialist alternative to the likes of IBM, Microsoft and Oracle. If you had told me on Friday that Software AG was going to strike an OEM deal for SOA management and monitoring I'd have put my money on AmberPoint, which has historically been the OEM of choice for the likes of BEA and TIBCO.

I am not quite sure what to make of this decision. AmberPoint doesn't compete with Software AG directly and has established a healthy and growing customer base, as well as partnerships with some of the leading systems integrators - and a technology partnership with Software AG! Software AG's decision comes not long after Oracle's decision to drop AmberPoint. As we pointed out in our analysis of Oracle's roadmap for the BEA integration, we don't have any hard evidence for Oracle's claims that it had received negative feedback from BEA customers but it's something we will continue to explore. In light of the decision to go with Actional, it will be intriguing to see how the partnership evolves and how things pan out when Software AG and Progress are in a competitive situation.

This acquisition should be welcome news to Software AG customers that have invested in the company's SOA offerings as it will save them the time and effort of plugging the runtime governance gap that existed prior to the partnership. Those embarking on a significant SOA intiative should also give Software AG careful consideration, particularly if they are not wedded to one of the mega-platform providers.

Labels: AmberPoint, BEA, governance, ibm, Oracle, Progress, SOA, Software AG, TIBCO, webMethods

posted by Neil Macehiter @ 2:32 PM 6 comments permalink

Oracle proposes to buy BEA

Oracle today confirmed

that it delivered a letter to the Board of Directors of BEA Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: BEAS) on October 9 in which Oracle proposes to acquire BEA for $17.00 per share in cash. The $17.00 per share offer is a 25% premium over yesterday's closing price of $13.62.

This acquisition has been long-discussed so I can't say I find the news particularly surprising, particularly with Carl Icahn recently upping his stake in the company. I think this just makes it more likely that Oracle's proposal will be accepted.

This is primarily as a market share grab by Oracle. It does plug some gaps in the portfolio - particularly around business process management (based on BEA's Fuego acquisition), where Oracle only has basic BPEL web services orchestration; adds some telecoms vertical market capabilities to complement Oracle's vertical market push and the virtualisation work that BEA has done with the WebLogic Virtual Server Edition. Also, there's the opportunity for Oracle to tap into the healthy Tuxedo base. With a significant chunk of Oracle's profitability coming from maintenance, the revenue from BEA's customer base will suit its business far better than it did BEA which was suffering with its inability to grow license revenues.

This is yet another example of the bigger specialist players getting squeezed out by the industry goliaths - IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP - and the open source, smaller best-of-breed players. SAP's recent acquisition of Business Objects is another example (although that did plug a few more gaps). It leaves some of the other bigger specialist players - TIBCO, SoftwareAG (and to a lesser extent Progress and Red Hat) in an interesting position. On the one hand they will be more attractive, particularly for SOA and BPM, to customers looking for an application-independent infrastructure offering. On the other, though, taking market share for those customers from BEA is one thing: taking it from Oracle quite another. Ultimately, IBM is the big beneficiary in this regard.

In summary, then, I see: the acquisition going ahead; BEA's customers looking worried as they see themselves with an application-dependent infrastructure stack; IBM looking happy at the prospect of providing those customers with an application-independent alternative; the likes of TIBCO and Software AG pondering their options; and SAP and Microsoft carrying on in there own sweet way.

Labels: BEA, BPM, ibm, Microsoft, Oracle, Progress, Red Hat, SAP, SOA, Software AG, TIBCO

posted by Neil Macehiter @ 4:57 PM 2 comments permalink