Sounds like a new vacuum is about to open in a highly demanded space.
EMC Buys Pivotal Labs
41–50 of 68 posts
Re: EMC Buys Pivotal Labs
#42Pivotal Labs CEO Rob Mee just posted a short message on his company blog about the acquisition : http://pivotallabs.com/users/rob/blog/articles/2052-same-piv...
Every time a company is acquired, they say the same thing about how their larger parent is going to bring them greater resources and distribution. In reality, almost every company experiences the exact opposite effect. The early adopters and passionate base often leave and the company wallows in the murk of bureaucratic org charts. I think the stories of what happens a few years after the acquisition are much more in…
case in point:
LiveJournal / Six Apart
http://news.livejournal.com/82926.html
Re: EMC Buys Pivotal Labs
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only people who run their business on a random startup webapp. I wish amazon or Google would externalities their pro quality trackers, though.
Having just quit Amazon and knowing firsthand the disaster that was project tracking, this comment amuses me. There is no "pro quality tracker" at Amazon.
There is no such thing as a 'pro quality' tracker.
They ALL suck, in different ways, and simply try to minimize their deficiencies based on the context they were developed in.
You find the one that fits your world view and your work flow, and put up with the annoyances and oddities, or try to paper over them with hacks and service hooks.
Re: EMC Buys Pivotal Labs
#44This reminded me Mozy story. EMC CEO was searching for backup software for his home PC and found Mozy. He liked it so much so he acquired company making Mozy. Maybe this time he found Pivotal Tracker? ;)
Sure, but EMC and Mozy are a natural fit. It's not like he heard a really good song on the radio, and the next day EMC bought the record label.
Re: EMC Buys Pivotal Labs
#45Any word on the future of Pivotal Tracker?
Switch to Trello. It's practically the same thing, but far less opinionated/religious.
Re: EMC Buys Pivotal Labs
#46Sounds like a new vacuum is about to open in a highly demanded space.
I'm sure Asian companies have already ventured into it http://fundprojectswith.me/
Re: EMC Buys Pivotal Labs
#47Pivotal Labs CEO Rob Mee just posted a short message on his company blog about the acquisition : http://pivotallabs.com/users/rob/blog/articles/2052-same-piv...
Every time a company is acquired, they say the same thing about how their larger parent is going to bring them greater resources and distribution. In reality, almost every company experiences the exact opposite effect. The early adopters and passionate base often leave and the company wallows in the murk of bureaucratic org charts. I think the stories of what happens a few years after the acquisition are much more in…
There are notable exceptions. Heroku is still shipping awesome new stuff at a rapid clip under their Salesforce overlords. I don't know directly, but the plan at acquisition time was that they would stay pretty independent. I would guess that that helps a lot.
I think Pivotal could be one of those. Him saying "same services" suggests that EMC isn't planning on absorbing the team into something else. It helps that Pivotal is (presumably) very profitable, so there's value to leaving it alone instead of just viewing it as a source of a ton of great devs.
If it's still really Pivotal, and it just happens to be owned by EMC, they might fade much slower than the "everyone leaves within a year and a half" that we've seen so many times.
Re: EMC Buys Pivotal Labs
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Every time a company is acquired, they say the same thing about how their larger parent is going to bring them greater resources and distribution. In reality, almost every company experiences the exact opposite effect. The early adopters and passionate base often leave and the company wallows in the murk of bureaucratic org charts. I think the stories of what happens a few years after the acquisition are much more in…
There are notable exceptions. Heroku is still shipping awesome new stuff at a rapid clip under their Salesforce overlords. I don't know directly, but the plan at acquisition time was that they would stay pretty independent. I would guess that that helps a lot. I think Pivotal could be one of those. Him saying "same services" suggests that EMC isn't planning on absorbing the team into something else. It helps that Piv…
There are notable exceptions, but in every case of acquisition in the enterprise software space, the PR after the acquisition will always say things will remain the same, it will remain a standalone subsidiary.
But thing usually change, quickly, within a year or two.
Re: EMC Buys Pivotal Labs
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
"...At the same time the low-end of the market is moving to the cloud, also for good reasons. Their customer-base is shrinking from both ends at a rapid pace. And they don't really know where to go from here..." They do own the company that owns the majority of enterprise cloud market...
...which is being commoditized as well. Don't get me wrong, I don't think EMC is going anywhere soon. But their days of fat margins by the virtue of vendor-lockin are numbered. They're obviously trying to get moving with acquisitions like this. But one can only wonder how on earth pivotal (~100 employees) is supposed to beat 30years of BigCo inertia out of ~50k employees - if that's the idea behind this. Are they try…
Since the turn of the century, EMC have purchased something like 80 companies. Almost all of them outside of storage related companies have had issues, or have been dropped. If you are in a company that gets bought by EMC, my suggestion is to start looking for another company to work for!
Re: EMC Buys Pivotal Labs
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Every time a company is acquired, they say the same thing about how their larger parent is going to bring them greater resources and distribution. In reality, almost every company experiences the exact opposite effect. The early adopters and passionate base often leave and the company wallows in the murk of bureaucratic org charts. I think the stories of what happens a few years after the acquisition are much more in…
There are notable exceptions. Heroku is still shipping awesome new stuff at a rapid clip under their Salesforce overlords. I don't know directly, but the plan at acquisition time was that they would stay pretty independent. I would guess that that helps a lot. I think Pivotal could be one of those. Him saying "same services" suggests that EMC isn't planning on absorbing the team into something else. It helps that Piv…
There are exceptions, but only as an anomaly. Also, that doesn't really get at what's wrong with each of these exiting thoughts. Did Heroku keep shipping as a result or in spite of selling their company?
I'm not arguing against the practice of acquisitions. However, when a HUGE company buys a small team (famous for agile development) I find it hard to believe statements arguing that more resources are going to lead to "increased velocity".