Progress Software CEO: We’re honored to serve dev community

Progress Software has been helping developers build better applications since Ronald Reagan was president — in his first term. Along the way, the company, which boasts a base of more than 1.7 million developers, has evolved to meet the changing needs of the enterprises and software companies that use its products.

In this installment of the IDG Enterprise CEO Interview Series, Progress CEO Philip Pead spoke with Chief Content Officer John Gallant about how the company is helping developers build applications in and for the cloud, as well as modernize core business applications for a mobile, social world. Pead also talked about recent acquisitions that have bolstered Progress’s portfolio and its strategy to become the preferred destination for developers. He discussed Progress’ offerings to unite marketers and IT, its plans for attracting the next generation of savvy app builders, and the ways it empowers traditional enterprises to get up to speed fast in building mobile applications.

Q: Progress has been around since the early 1980s. What’s the most important thing that you want an IT executive to know about Progress today?

A: The genesis of the company was really focused on application development. We built a platform called OpenEdge that enabled ISVs to build a product that would solve a problem in a particular vertical industry and enable an enterprise to solve a business problem. The core of the OpenEdge platform was that we should make it as simple as possible to achieve the resolution of the problem. Let’s not make this so difficult that it will take years and years for them to accomplish that. That simple premise and thesis upon which the company was built carried the company through amazing growth, which brings us to today. I’m going to preempt the next question by telling you that nothing has really changed in the app world. There’s still a difference between those platforms that are easy to build applications on and those that are not. Anyone reading this article will recognize that never before in technology has speed been so critical to the success of either the ISV or the corporation.

Q: Your stated strategy, at least as I’ve read, focuses on being the “preferred destination for developers.” What does that mean precisely and how do you measure your success at that?

A: Everyone today, it seems to me, is building an app, whether they’re building it for the browser, whether they’re building it for mobile, whether they’re still building for on premise. The app itself is more focused on systems of engagement versus systems of record so that we’re seeing functionality that wraps around ERP systems, for example, or creating an entirely new industry based on an application that they built for mobile. We have apps now that are connecting machine to machine — the Internet of things. So when we say we want to be the preferred destination for developers, what I’ve described is an incredibly complex environment, more complex than I think we’ve ever seen in technology. It’s a very exciting thing, but it gives developers an enormous amount of choice. When developers think about how they should approach any platform, they should look at whether or not the platform they’re going to use locks them into any particular technology stack or marketplace. Anyone who wants the freedom to build on the platform for whatever device they choose and/or whatever cloud they want to deploy in, it’s important for them to take a look at Progress because that’s the mantra we have tried to build on since the company began. Make it simple and give developers the freedom of choice.

Q: How do you measure your success at becoming the preferred destination for developers? What is your metric?

A: Today we have over 1.7 million developers in our community, so I guess our measurement is the larger that community is, the more exciting it is for us to be able to serve them. Given that developers have an enormous amount of choice, we’re honored that so many developers have already chosen us. Our metric is to build the largest possible community on this planet that is enjoying the tools we provide developers to improve their lives, to improve the speed with which they can develop that application, the speed with which they can deploy it and the freedom not to be stuck with any particular vendor that prevents them from really marketing their product (if they’re an ISV) to the largest possible ecosystem. They can take advantage of anybody’s marketplace if they choose to build their great products on Progress’ platforms.

Q: How many of your customers fall in the ISV camp versus the enterprise camp, and how is that changing? How do you want it to change?

A: Today, two-thirds of our customers are ISVs versus enterprises or direct users. We see that ratio continuing, but I will say that more and more enterprises are looking at ways that they can engage their customers and prospects in a more digital way. This really comes across when you look at the websites that are being built today by sophisticated enterprises who realize that digitizing the enterprise is actually a critical component of future success. No longer is the website considered a billboard. Those that do consider it a billboard, where they’re just providing information about the company, are not going to be successful in this algorithmic search marketplace that we currently live in. I keep seeing this statistic over and over that 60 percent of the time buyers have already decided on the product that they want to buy before they come to an enterprise’s website. They’ve already done the research and decided that’s the product they want to buy. If that is true, if you’re not part of that research process, if the company isn’t discovered by that prospect, then they’re not going to be the one selected for the final purchase. Websites are becoming the next generation of application development where the level of sophistication that we’re seeing is truly amazing.

One of the products that we market is called Sitefinity, which is a Web content management solution that is really an application development platform as well. You can build on to that platform really sophisticated technology to predict the kind of content that a prospect might be interested in looking at and you engage them. Once you’ve engaged them you obviously want to convert them so that onboarding process is really critical. That is really the next generation of application development, as more and more enterprises choose to build intelligent websites to attract and engage their customers and prospects. We’re really happy that we have such a formidable solution in that space.

Q: I definitely want to talk about your efforts to assist marketing and that intersection of marketing and IT, but first let’s discuss your goals as CEO. You took over, I think, in late 2012.

A: That’s right.

Q: Why were you brought in and what have been your goals since taking the helm?

A: I originally came to Progress as a board member, then became chairman of the board. The [strategy] was already under way, but we were replacing the current CEO at the time. We found a new CEO who left after 10 months, which of course was very disappointing. Having been involved in two other public company transformations, I put my hand up and the board selected me. This was really a matter of executing on the strategy and making sure that we didn’t lose any momentum because the market was receptive to Progress’ solutions and new direction. Employees were excited.

Q: Talk about your acquisition strategy, Phil, particularly around Modulus and Telerik. How are those companies advancing the strategy and how are you using acquisitions?

A: Progress had incredible DNA as it related to application development. The majority of that development was focused on on-premise because that was the model that everybody essentially followed when Progress began. What happened along the way is that cloud computing became a more prevalent way for solutions to be consumed. That became a very compelling value proposition for consumers (consumers being enterprises, individuals, and so on). It also gave ISVs an opportunity, with very little investment, to take advantage of this incredible power of computing from companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft Azure, and so on. We needed to make sure that the platform we offered developers provided them with the architecture necessary to take advantage of this infrastructure. The first [acquisition we made] was Rollbase, which was a productivity platform for cloud development. By productivity I mean developers being able to develop an application really quickly and deploy it in whatever cloud they desire and on whatever device. That was an incredibly powerful acquisition for us because it positioned us really well in terms of completeness of vision and ability to execute. It enabled us to give our existing ISVs an opportunity to take advantage of cloud computing which they weren’t previously able to do.

We love Modulus. Modulus really started focusing on Node.js., which is the fastest-growing language, faster than Java. We really like that community and wanted to offer Node.js developers an opportunity to deploy their applications on our platform and not have to worry about it. [It offers] incredible scaling and a very powerful dashboard to be able to deploy those applications across the globe. Docker really gave us an opportunity to broaden the capabilities of Modulus to include other languages. Now we were able to attract a far greater number of developers as a result.

These acquisitions build on top of each other. Finally, we’re really excited about Telerik because it gave us an opportunity to attract developers who want to build beautiful applications. Giving them the tools to take an application that they’re building and really create an intuitive experience for their users is something we really wanted to add to the platform. Providing them with all the back-end tooling and deployment capabilities along with the front-end part of that gave us an opportunity to offer a platform with a comprehensive set of capabilities to allow them to build beautiful applications.

Q: Let’s talk about app modernization. How can you help your customers, whether they are ISVs or enterprises, modernize those legacy apps? As perhaps part of that, how can you ease transition to the cloud?

A: That is an area of amazing activity right now because people really do not want to rip and replace the legacy systems that have been in place for a very long period of time. They work great, but they’re not very intuitive. People need to build engaging applications that take advantage of those systems of record. There is this incredible activity going on right now where the market is using Progress’ tools — through Telerik, through our deployment platforms — to enable [developers] to access the data inherent in those legacy applications using all our data connectivity tools. You can externalize your business rules using Corticon. You can use the Telerik tools to make that application really intuitive and a great experience for the user. [You can] use all the data that’s built in that legacy system and expose it through these tools that we offer the developer. We are, if not the leader, very close to being the leader in data access with our data connectivity solutions. That’s a very powerful suite of solutions we can offer developers and [users].

Q: What do you see as the biggest obstacle to that modernization effort?

A: For our base of ISVs going through this, the obstacle has always been staffing — being able to augment their folks with additional help to get through this process. In October of last year we bought a services company called BravePoint, which came with 100 incredible individuals: supertalented, very knowledgeable. We are now able to deploy a large number of people to customers who are looking to modernize and would like help with their framework design. For [enterprises], we are able to do the same thing. We have a significant number of engagements across the globe now where we’re helping our customers and others modernize using our tools.

Q: The other area I wanted to talk to you about, particularly when it comes to the enterprise, is mobile app development. Do you think that finally enterprises are coming to grips with mobile app development or are they still struggling with it?

A: We just published a survey where we interviewed 3,000 individuals across various roles from the C-suite down. It’s amazing that about 57 percent of developers have yet to build a mobile app, which means that a lot of mobile app development is by third parties for enterprises rather than their own folks building for the enterprise. There’s a long way to go. There’s been almost a services approach to this. Part of that is because it hasn’t been very easy. There really hasn’t been a complete and structured environment for them to build on until we released the Telerik platform, which made it really easy for somebody to build a powerful mobile app as if it’s native. We did that by releasing a product called NativeScript and we contributed it to open source. It’s been incredibly successful. NativeScript allows a developer to build a native mobile app using JavaScript. If they’re a JavaScript programmer they don’t have to move away from what they know. We’ve partnered with Google, with AngularJS, and it’s been an incredibly well received piece of software in the open source community.

Q: What do you expect to see over the next couple of years with enterprises and mobile app development? Do you think you’ll see a significant shift toward taking more of that in-house?

A: I think enterprises will take on more and more of the role of building that experience because I don’t like the mobile experience from a lot of enterprises today. You have a very rich browser experience, then the mobile leaves you wanting more. You’re almost forced to go back to your desktop and fire up your browser because either the functionality is not there or the navigation is weak or the experience is poor. Enterprises that want to be noticed have to create a great mobile experience, and I think the way to do that is to build on a platform like the Telerik platform where their developers will have a great experience.

Q: I want to shift and talk about the platform-as-a-service market. I think a lot of IT leaders are learning about this. They’re trying to understand the players and the capabilities. I want to position you in that overall market. Do you see yourself competing with companies like Microsoft Azure here or are you in a more specific niche?

A: The way we’ve positioned ourselves is in the application-platform-as-a-service rather than the pure PaaS market. We’re enabling developers to build an application on our platform, using our tools, then deploy that application using our platform, Microsoft Azure if they want, or on Google or Amazon. I talked earlier about the freedom of choice. This enables developers to build an application on our platform and not have to worry about where they deploy it. That’s the difference.

Q: Why wouldn’t they build in Azure or another platform if they’re planning on hosting there anyway?

A: There is no reason. If they want to take advantage of the Microsoft ecosystem or Salesforce or others that want you to stay in their stack, that’s the choice they make. But if they want to deploy in any of those ecosystems and not limit themselves to one particular vendor, then Progress is a natural choice.

Q: What are the unique things you bring to bear with your APaaS that aren’t available in other offerings?

A: We offer developers the opportunity to develop their application using the Rollbase productivity solution I mentioned earlier. Rollbase enables you to build a sophisticated application using JavaScript and, depending on the sophistication of the application, we will provide approximately 60 percent of the code prebuilt. Basically that code for every application is almost the same thing. Every application requires a certain amount of foundation to be built on. Now the balance of that unwritten code you’re developing specifically to solve whatever the problem is in that vertical [application]. Other platforms do not offer that. They’ve taken the approach that it’s all about control languages, so they will offer Java, they’ll offer pure JavaScript with a blank sheet of paper, or they’ll offer Ruby, PHP, or Python. Developers that prefer to develop with full control obviously will build in that environment. For those developers that would like to get to market more quickly, particularly those enterprises that have a pressing business problem they need to solve and/or if they want to prototype something, they can build it really quickly, test it in the marketplace, then develop from there because they realize it actually works. That’s a huge advantage for building on our APaaS.

Q: We’re seeing a lot of change in the development market and a very different approach to development by emerging companies versus enterprises or older line ISVs. How are you attracting these emerging companies and the next generation of developers to your platform and tools?

A: The amazing thing about today’s environment is its community word of mouth. Developers today are seeking references from other developers. You see it all the time on the community blogs. What are you using for this? How did you do that? That word of mouth spreads to an enormous number of developers really, really quickly. I mentioned that Progress is now part of 1.7 million developers. I’m humbled by the fact that so many of those developers choose Progress because we’re offering them something that is unique and a great experience.

Q: When you look at those 1.7 million developers, how many of them or what percentage of them would you categorize as emerging companies or what we would consider as next-gen companies?

A: I think a substantial portion of them are. There’s a substantial number of those emerging companies that are taking advantage of ideas that translate really well into a mobile environment. The benefit for these folks is that they get access to this incredible computing power for very, very little money. I think that’s why there’s been this incredible proliferation of app development in a very short period of time because the amount of investment needed for relatively few numbers of people in an emerging technology company to change the world is remarkable. We’re constantly monitoring the uses of our solutions. We’re constantly monitoring the demands of those developers to see what would improve their experience, enable them to get their application to market more quickly, take away some of the burdens that they have, like the drudgery of development. One thing I will tell you is that Progress is being driven to provide the environment that creates the simplest way to solve the problem. Creating something that’s simple to use is really complex, and we’ve tried to take that complexity away and help the developer achieve their results as quickly as possible.

Q: Phil, I want to talk about products for marketers. Could you clarify what you bring to the table that’s unique for marketers and how those tools help bridge the marketing and the IT departments together so they work in sync more effectively?

A: That has been a frustration across enterprises. IT has moved to becoming more of an enabler of technologies that are being purchased by others within the enterprise as opposed to providing what they historically provided, which was either building applications specifically for a use case within the enterprise or enabling and searching for solutions that would provide some level of differentiation for the enterprise. It’s now gotten to the point where the business user is choosing the solution for themselves and asking IT to deploy it. We believe that that doesn’t create an optimal environment for the enterprise because IT feels like they’re not providing a level of service based on their capabilities, and marketing is getting involved in judging solutions which may or may not be suitable for their needs.

That brings us to Progress and Sitefinity. Sitefinity, as I mentioned, is a Web content management solution. It bridges the gap between IT and marketing so that the developer in the enterprise can customize Sitefinity to meet the needs of the marketers. Sitefinity is incredibly powerful in and of itself, but when you add the extensibility of the platform to that power, it creates a new dimension for enterprises that they cannot get from any other solution. It’s very exciting to see this. The majority of the business that we’re getting in that space is coming from the developers in the enterprise, not from marketing, because marketing doesn’t necessarily look at Progress as a solution that they would normally adopt. It’s very exciting that those developers within the organization are recommending to marketers that before they make a decision on a solution that’s as important now as an intelligent website or, as I believe, the next generation of application development, they should really look at Sitefinity.

Q: Talk about the BI and analytics space. What are you doing to help people not only build the applications but glean more intelligence out of the applications and the associated data?

A: A BI tool is only as good as your access to data. When you get access to data there are a whole host of things necessary to give the subsequent reports the validity they need in order for people to make decisions. The biggest part of that for us is data connectivity. We’re really focused on having the widest possible number of data sources that the BI tools can get access to. We are partners with Tableau and Qlik and a large number of other BI players, as well as being able to offer significant access to Salesforce, IBM, SAP, and Microsoft and with [access to] unstructured data, with mobile data. Everybody is looking for a way to connect to each of these data sources, so whether it’s a BI tool or whether it’s a mobile app or whether it’s an on-premise app trying to get access to a cloud app, we’re really in the middle of that data connectivity.

Q: Do you provide any analytics tools?

A: We do for our OpenEdge base because a lot of ISVs wanted an embedded tool for their OpenEdge applications. We partnered with Logi Analytics to do that. The BI space is well served by some great companies and Logi Analytics is one of those and so we partnered with them to embed their analytics capabilities within our OpenEdge Platform to make it a really seamless offering for our OpenEdge ISVs and our direct end-users.

Q: With all the different products that you bring together, who do you view as your core competitors in winning over the hearts and minds of developers?

A: For the developer that wants the freedom to be able to deploy their application on any device and in any cloud, we’re competing with everybody that does not offer that. If they prefer to be in someone else’s ecosystem and be tied to that, then clearly they make that decision. For competition across the suite of solutions, it depends on the market as to who the competitor is. Today it’s not just a question of whether we’re competing with this vendor or that vendor, we’re also partnering with them too. It’s become a very collaborative environment as well as a competitive environment. Depending on what market we’re playing in there will be a completely different set of competitors in those markets.

Q: What’s on the road map for Progress? Over the next year or two, what are some of the key pieces you want to fill in?

A: I think about the area of Web design and the complexities associated with building out predictive analytics and the incredible number of data sources that wrap around that kind of platform. This digital transformation of enterprises is fascinating for us because so many of the components of that digital transformation we have as part of our solution suite. We’ll take advantage of this incredible movement in that area because it takes advantage of so many of our tools and suite of solutions. Mobile is going to continue to grow exponentially, and I think a lot more enterprises are now going to seek a platform like ours to build mobile apps on. Lastly, I think we’re beginning to see this incredible connectivity of everything out there. The fact that you will get into your car now and it will sync up with your phone and give you everything that is on your smartphone as part of your vehicle, just shows the power today of a connected universe. We want to be not only the destination of choice for developers building apps in this connected universe; we also want to be the vendor that is helping them connect. Those two aspects: the data aspect and the application development aspect, are key areas for Progress for the future.