Comments on: Vignette is Losing at Musical Chairs

By: Insider

Insider — Wed, 06 May 2009 14:34:05 +0000

Good call!!!

By: Pie

Pie — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 14:46:13 +0000

Great insight on Vignette, especially on ex-CEO connection. I would think that Open Text is out now as RedDot has been “merged” into the fold. That implies to me that they are committed to that solution.

Then again, OT does like to buy people.

By: japa

japa — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 21:40:33 +0000

VIGN’s market cap is now less than cash at ~ 135 million. Good amount of Maintenance Revenue coming in along with some license revenue.

Seems a no brainer to be bought out. HP is at top of my list simply to compete with EMC, IBM, etc. ORCL, Open Text may be other possibilities.

VIGN’s ex-CEO is now the Software VP at HP.

By: Pie

Pie — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 17:06:10 +0000

Dirk, thanks for reading. While I’m not saying I agree from what I have seen, I do welcome your opinion.

- Pie

By: Dirk shaw

Dirk shaw — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 00:41:31 +0000

Hi There.
In my three years as a vignette employee the rumor mills have swirled about who may or not be suitors and why.
I wanted to address two points you make.

The first point about our technology being “stagnant”, we had two releases of our VCM product last year and another planned in 2009. We have also launched a social media suite to deliver online experiences to actively engage visitors with things like ratings, comments and online communities. We will continue to bring solutions to market that integrate content & rich media with social computing.

The second point I wanted to address was “There may not be enough brain power left”. Like many companies in this market we had a reduction in workforce. With that said, we have superb talent across all functional areas of our business. There is plenty of brain power and no shortage of ideas.

On another note. This was my first visit to your blog and found some excellent insights on the market. I look forward to learning more.

Thanks,
Dirk Shaw
Twitter @vignettecorp

By: Pie

Pie — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 16:15:19 +0000

Thanks for the clarification Marko. Interesting thought on Open Text. I only wonder how long they can keep absorbing ECM companies before they start causing themselves more harm than good.

Right now I know that if Open Text acquired my vendor that I would be worried about my systems future.

By: Marko Sillanpää

Marko Sillanpää — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 15:16:16 +0000

I think you missed my point around the “old CA”. It seems today’s CA has been moving towards IT Management specifically. But I do think if one looks at the lack of acquisitions consolidation at Open Text, one needs to wonder if Open Text is becoming the “CA” of the content management world.

By: Pie

Pie — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 15:09:43 +0000

Thanks Marko. I’m leaning more towards Open Text than HP, but I’m not ruling them out yet. The question is whether or not they want to expand their CM offerings. If yes, the Vignette is a target.

I hadn’t considered CA. That makes some sense, but it seems like that would just be a death sentence for Vignette in the space. The stockholders may like the move, but as a client, not sure that I would. I’ve never been impressed by their stuff a few years after they took it over.

By: Marko Sillanpää

Marko Sillanpää — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 15:02:17 +0000

The Vignette viewpoint is interesting. For me HP really didn’t stand out as a formal suitor. My thinking has always been, and as time goes on solidifies, that Vignettes will be acquired by a company like the old Computer Associates. If one looks at CA ten years ago, they liked to acquire software with a healthy maintenance stream and capitalize on it.

In the 9 months ending September 2008, Vignette had over $105m in services dollars vs. $27m in software. While it’s hard to tell what’s support dollars and what’s consulting dollars the ratio of $3.88, for services to sales, is interesting. In 2007 that number was $2.65. That means their making more of services than off sales. Meanwhile the costs of services has remained flat.

Then again, maybe that is Open Text. If one looks at all of the platforms they have acquired in the last few years, none have been integrated into a single architecture. With five separate platforms maybe that is their approach and in that case Vignette falls easily into the stable of content management platforms offered by Open Text.