...succeed and be the leader in the segment. Customers want solutions that are independent from other apps. Microsoft being a company that drives one database — SQL Server — doesn't have the independent attribute that's so key to business.
The other thing is that [IT] wants solutions that scale with their business... and Microsoft's not very good at that. They're relatively late while we've been here for years.
But even if Microsoft fails to dominate this market, won't that still put added pressure on pure-play vendors such as yourself?
I think they can have some impact on the SME market. But the market is expanding rapidly and we have very strong play in the enterprise... I also see that as a potential opportunity because they bundle our products now. If they're making more noises about business intelligence, that just pushes our product to more places.
After you close the SRC deal next month, what do you expect to come out of the acquisition over the course of the next year?
It is strategic question for us. The deal propels us into new territory — financial planning, budgeting and the whole spectrum of enterprise performance management. This completes our product portfolio so we can come to the customer and say we cover all their requirements.
Do you expect you'll need to substantially increase the size of your company's sales force?
Not necessarily substantially. We have about 560 salespeople right now.
When you did the Crystal deal a couple of years back — I think for $1.2bn — some folks said you might be biting off too much.
True. There were a lot of sceptics — and that's normal because there are a lot of failures in enterprise acquisitions. But we brought together two successful companies that were highly complementary and it made for a great outcome.
I'm extremely happy with the acquisition. Two years ago, the stock was 18 and now it's 32. Our combined trailing revenue at the time was about $720m; this last year it was $925m and we're expecting to grow this year. Also, two years ago we were number two in the space and now we're the clear number one.
Do you feel a sense of vindication?
Absolutely.
What's the hardest part about pulling off a successful merger? How do you keep the integration issues from tripping you up?
One of the hardest things is to create a common culture. We really embraced what Crystal had done. It was two-thirds of our size and it was really important for us to embrace the other's strength and culture. The other thing was to give a path to customers to move to the new platform and not leave any of them behind. The third point was to create a product portfolio that takes the strength of both products and that's what we've done.
