CEO Letter to Customers
To Our Valued Customers,
Last month marked a significant new chapter in Borland’s history as we officially launched our public campaign to re-brand Borland and drive our go to market focus around Open Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) – the segment of the ALM market in which vendors’ solutions are flexible enough to support a customer’s specific processes, tools and platforms.
We strongly believe that Open ALM will position Borland as the market champion in driving the customer agenda through this unique and customer-centric approach to ALM. For most organizations, improvement efforts are led in one of two ways: by a plan based on their priorities – or somebody else’s. “Somebody else’s” plan usually consists of a monolithic, proprietary approach to ALM. At Borland, we empower you to deliver software on your terms, using your processes, your tools and your platforms.
This year we also made clear our intention to separate the ALM and IDE (developer tools group) portions of our business. We have long stated that these two businesses are both important but very distinct. They serve different users, require different R&D teams, and have different sales and marketing models. Earlier this month we announced that we would form a separate, wholly-owned subsidiary for the Developer Tools Group called CodeGear, which will be solely responsible for advancing our award-winning IDE product lines. Although slightly different from our original divestiture plan announced in February, we feel this new model best serves our shareholders, employees, and most importantly, our mutual customers.
Through our Open ALM approach, we provide the flexibility you need to manage, measure and improve your software delivery process based on your unique needs. Our solutions are designed to integrate across our tools – as well as third-party tools you may already have in place – in order to support a more seamless software delivery process. Above all, we work to support the processes that best fit your organization.
Over the past 24 months, we’ve expanded our product and services offerings according to the principles of Open ALM in the critical process areas:
Most recently, we introduced Gauntlet, a developer test, inspection framework and defect management product that is architected around our Open ALM approach. Gauntlet provides real-time visibility and software quality metrics earlier in the development cycle, enabling management with greater predictability of software quality.
Commitment to customer choice and flexibility continues to be the driving force at Borland. Learn more about our guiding principles by reading the Borland Open ALM Manifesto.
I expect 2007 to be the year that Borland becomes known as The Open ALM Company. It represents our stake in the game and our commitment to fight for the rights of our customers who are passionate about driving the next generation of software productivity on their terms, and I’d like to personally thank you for your investment in Borland and your ongoing vote of confidence.
We look forward to working closely with you in the coming year.
All the best,
Tod Nielsen
CEO, Borland Software