Executive president of products Olivier Helleboid is heading-up long-term strategy and planning while vice president and chief marketing officer Tod Nielson temporarily takes charge of products, and day-to-day marketing is run by senior vice president Rick Jackson.
BEA chairman and chief executive Alfred Chuang told Wall Street analysts yesterday Helleboid would look to drastically and rapidly expand [BEA’s] market place through products and through the channel.
Additionally, BEA is taking a looking at SMBs and Value Added Resellers (VARs) as new opportunities for business, as these customers will now be tackled through a General Accounts unit, established in the last three months.
BEA is chasing customers in vertical markets through its focus on VARs, and creating packages around WebLogic for telcos, manufacturing, government and finance. Chuang said vertical market packages provide an entrée into customers and prospects.
In tackling SMBs and verticals, BEA is following enterprise Java competitor IBM Corp. Chuang denied BEA was, indeed, following IBM’s lead, and instead responding to partners’ requests.
In a further shift, the head of BEA’s North American sales has been replaced by global sales head Charlie Ill, after that region fell below expectation during the first quarter. Chuang said transition to the General Accounts unit had taken longer than expected, as accounts were re-assigned, and Ill is now on the road confirming BEA’s pipeline.
News of restructuring and changes comes in a difficult period for BEA, who is slipping further behind IBM in the application server market according to latest statistics from analysts Gartner Group and IDC.
Core to BEA’s problems is convincing customers to upgrade to its latest version of WebLogic 8.1, launched last summer, which it has positioned as a platform sell. Chuang conceded yesterday that sales of WebLogic 8.1 had yet to take off, although he expects a faster sales ramp later this year. Chuang added it was taking a number of quarters to transition customers to the WebLogic Platform.
For the three-month period to April 30, BEA reported 3.5% growth in net income to $25.3m on revenue that grew 10.6% to $262m. Earnings per share were static at $0.06.
