Borland going after services revenue
Published:21-January-2005
By BR staff writer
Services are destined to play a greater part in Borland Software Corp's future, as the company assists customers around Application Lifecycle Management (ALM).
Borland has spent the last 10 months quietly growing the number of employees in its worldwide services organization, with numbers standing at 220 following this week's TeraQuest Metrics Inc acquisition.
Senior vice president of worldwide services Chris Barbin told ComputerWire the TeraQuest purchase is part of Borland's strategy to grow its services business.
The goal is for 40% of Borland's annual revenue to eventually be derived from global services, up from today's figure of between 27% and 30%, Barbin said.
"This [the TeraQuest deal] is part of our services growth plan," Barbin said. "Ten months ago we made a strategic shift. "
Borland made its name in development tools during the 1990s, but in recent years re-invented itself first around ALM and then, last year, around Software Delivery Optimization (SDO).
Borland is moving from simply selling point-products to developers to providing an entire, integrated suite targeting C-level executives. The suite is designed to provide business managers with greater control over application development whilst also helping integrate the different phases in an application's life to help improve the quality of both the development process and the applications that are produced.
This week's TeraQuest purchase provides Borland with access to some of the thinking behind standards that are used to inject greater quality control and process-oriented development procedures into delivery of business applications. Joining Borland as a result of the TeraQuest deal, are Bill Curtis and Charlie Webber, co-authors of the Capability Maturity Model the foundation for many of today's software quality initiatives, with Curtis also appointed Borland's first ever Chief Process Officer.
Along with Curtis and Webber, Borland also bought 11 TeraQuest consultants qualified to audit customers' software development processes qualification is an expensive process.
Barbin said it's important for Borland to become move involved in services around quality, because customers' application infrastructures have become bigger and more complex in recent years, making development and management more difficult, and potentially more expensive and harder to get right.
Services will focus on three areas: consulting that assists customers move from competitors like IBM Rational to Borland, education, with certification provided in Borland's tools via the online and off-line facilities of Borland University that is due during the first half of 2005, and technical support that will provide maintenance.
