Change is VERY Good

Change is good. It’s a mantra that people repeat all the time but not always with much sense of conviction. In our corner of the world, though, change is constant and exciting. It’s what we do! It isn’t’ just change for the sake of change -- it is about being a learning and adaptive organization.

Progress has been doing change since it was launched. And, in the two years since I came on board, the pace has quickened. We’ve pared off pieces that didn’t fit our core focus on delivering next generation application development, deployment and integration solutions. And we have stayed focused on achieving results for our customers, not just on building out our organization.

Now, we are taking things to the next level by tightly grouping our most-closely related capabilities into three new, distinct, entrepreneurial business units, each with a clear mission. This move was announced just a few weeks ago and discussed further in connection with our 3^rd Quarter Earnings on September 25. So far, the reaction has been positive and our numbers are strong. In the fiscal third quarter of 2014, on a GAAP basis:

• Income from operations was $19.4 million compared to $9.7 million in the same quarter last year;
• Income from continuing operations was $11.1 million compared to $7.2 million in the same quarter last year;
• Net income was $11.1 million compared to $24.8 million in the same quarter last year; and

Translation? Our organization is getting more effective at delivering – and our reorganization will keep us on track. The OpenEdge business will provide the product enhancements and marketing support partners need to continue to grow; the Data Connectivity business will support organizations in accessing and integrating greater volumes of ever-more-complex data; and, Application Development and Deployment business (which I’m leading) will focus on bringing new customers to the application development assets of our Pacific Platform, including Rollbase and Mobility, as well as Corticon and Modulus.

My business unit will focus on what we do best: enabling our customers to deliver their products to market quickly and easily – and with more capabilities.

The change at Progress is all about pursuing the best routes to market by having a clear focus on the needs of each segment.

We are grateful for the huge community of Progress loyalists – people who have built their applications and even their companies around our core technology. But we also know – and you have all told us – that we need to stop being a “best kept secret” and become the company that everybody in the app/dev world knows and trusts; the place to go for tried and proven technologies as well as cutting-edge innovations.

Put simply, we’ve got the secret sauce and we want to get out there and share it!