With analysts predicting global revenue for US-based software development platform vendor Progress Software will reach around $402 million for the year to November, Progress Software SA is looking to double its revenue in a five-year growth plan.
Rick Parry, MD of Progress Software SA, was speaking at the company`s African users` conference in the Drakensberg earlier this week.
Although Parry did not provide specific figures, he said in the first five years of operation Progress`s revenue had effectively doubled and plans for the next five are expected to yield the same growth.
The Nasdaq-listed company specialises in software for development and deployment of business applications, which is used by independent software vendors, application partners and corporate software development departments.
Progress is going to target vertical markets and Parry highlighted the potential for medium- and long-term opportunities in the healthcare, financial and retail sectors.
While Progress has a certain amount of activity in Africa, Parry said the African expansion needs to be more cohesive, and a more concerted effort will be put into securing business in predominantly the sub-Saharan countries.
BEE requirements hard to meet
Parry said the company needs to target government to take advantage of the high IT spend in that sector. However, he noted that a change in the firm`s black economic empowerment (BEE) credentials is needed for this.
He said it looks impossible to meet the requirements of the ICT empowerment charter, as the resources don`t exist in SA.
"There are too many senior management positions to fill, and not enough experience out there."
Parry said because merger and application failure rates are around 70%, Progress is focusing on enterprise development.
"We will establish strategic partnerships with entrepreneurs, with appropriate credentials, and will assist in their development, establishing a mutually beneficial relationship."
Building blocks for SOA
In terms of software development, the primary focus is the implementation of service-enabled architecture, said Parry. Progress believes the latest version of its development platform - OpenEdge 10.1 - has the building blocks for service-oriented architecture (SOA).
OpenEdge is a software suite that simplifies the job of creating business applications. It is an integrated software infrastructure that includes a database, application servers, data servers, an application development environment and framework, Internet-ready messaging and application management.
A beta version of OpenEdge 10.1 was pre-released at the user conference and will be made commercially available at the end of the year.
"OpenEdge is the next stage in product evolution; the next step towards key building blocks for SOA," said Parry.
Pat Bonser, senior manager for product readiness at Progress Software US, who also attended the conference, said the purpose of OpenEdge 10.1 is to simplify the job of creating business.
Bonser said recent Gartner research shows that IT is seen as an inhibitor to business because IT doesn`t respond quickly enough.
"There is no need for one monolithic software, as it inhibits itself, so the components of the application have been broken out and separated into layers which form architecture," she added.
The OpenEdge 10.1 platform allows for development of components or applications that can be designed to work together.
Each application is self-adapted and has the ability to talk across the architecture with other applications, which all comes back to business needs, said Bonser.
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