In an interview with ComputerWire, Borland VP of product solutions Erik Frieberg said the company had not ruled out further acquisitions in these areas. The company’s acquisition of TeraQuest was its first for two years since buying TogetherSoft Corp, Starbase Corp and BoldSoft MDE AB in late 2002 to convert its suite of development tools into what it called an application lifecycle management (ALM) portfolio.
More recently the company has been talking about a new strategy it calls software delivery optimization. SDO is an attempt to provide business users with a greater understanding of, and visibility into, the software development cycle, from budgeting to software delivery and management. Borland believes this will better enable companies to deliver projects on time and within budget.
Its TeraQuest Metrics buy gave it consulting expertise in the area of software development processes and improvement. TeraQuest Metrics also gave Borland Bill Curtis and Charlie Webber, co-authors of the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) that is the basis for many of today’s software development best practices, including Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute’s stringent Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI).
TeraQuest Metrics also had a number of tools that help an organization manage its development process, as well as providing education, training and skills management among larger development teams.
Borland’s Frieberg said yesterday: We are planning more announcements soon in the area of skills, and how you manage skills in a team. TeraQuest brought some expertise in the area of the people side. We are planning on expanding that potential.
Asked whether expanding its expertise in this area may involve further acquisitions, Frieberg said, Oh yes, definitely. It is definitely our plan to expand both organically and inorganically.
Frieberg said that the company is also considering acquisitions in the services space. The company currently has around 220 consultants but plans to expand this side of its business. Frieberg said that financial analysts consider Borland to have the potential to make more money from services.
It has set itself a target of making 40% of its sales from services – up from around 27% today – although utilization of its existing consultants is already extremely high according to Frieberg. He said the company would consider the acquisition of small consultancies, but will also look to services partners to increase its footprint.
If we see an opportunity to acquire a consultancy or education company then yes, that is definitely part of our strategy too, Frieberg said.
