I listened to the PRGS conference call and heard Progress distinguish two types of customers, ISV and enterprise-direct.
We are enterprise-direct. Given that Progress speaks of these two channels as if they are *totally* different from each other, is it possible that they offer an altogether different set of developer tools to enterprise customers than they offer to the ISV's?
Otherwise it doesn't seem like this distinction would be very interesting to an investor. Perhaps the main difference is that ISV's are "locked" into the OE products more than enterprise-direct customers - because they have larger investments in the apps they've previously built.
[quote user="dbeavon"]So they don't give you access to a different set of developer tools? And there are no extra features that require a secret, ISV-only decoder-ring to unlock?[/quote]
The software is the same regardless of who buys it. A direct customer with a PDSOE control code gets the same features as an ISV who has a PDSOE control code.
ISVs are not locked into Progress, even though Amduus is an ISV, it has wandered away quite often.
I think from an investors point of view, ISVs can sell the product over and over building market share in Progress.
For enterprise-direct, it is only one user. It might be a big user, but it is one user.
Think of it like this, you work for a company and your boss decides s/he hates you. Your out of money. That is enterprise-direct.
If you own the company, and you and a client get in a tiff - not so bad, because you have other clients... that is, additional streams of revenue you can count on.
That is the difference from an investors point of view.
So they don't give you access to a different set of developer tools? And there are no extra features that require a secret, ISV-only decoder-ring to unlock?
It seemed that Progress was shrugging off any decreases in revenue from enterprise-direct customers. They said something self-evident ... they said something like "we don't have control" over the use of individual OE applications within the enterprise. But it seems that this would be no different in the case of ISV's ... if anything Progress would have even less control over the success of applications produced by ISV's since there are extra layers of indirection between Progress and the end-users of those ISV applications.
Assuming there is nothing different in the OpenEdge products themselves, how does Progress earn the special loyalty of the ISV developers? They don't seem too concerned about any corresponding loss of revenue on the ISV side. But I can't think of what substantial difference there would be in the OE tools, the OE developers, or the OE-based applications. I don't see why a loss of revenue on one side can be shrugged off like it isn't at all relevant to their OpenEdge business as a whole.
Traditionally Progress has been a heavy ISV (or Application Partner depending on what they are calling it that year ;-) ) market and so many products are aimed at that sort of sale/implementation (key example for me was the considerations around WebServices when they were first implemented). ISV's do sign agreements with Progress and there are different models for selling the product (SaaS and Percentage of Application come to mind). There may be deals on dev tools with bigger ISVs as well but in short Money talks! If you are a big ISV bringing in a lot of revenue, you will get a lot of love but equally if you are a big Direct End User bring in a lot of cash you will also get as much love.
Not sure it this answers your question.
[quote user="dbeavon"]So they don't give you access to a different set of developer tools? And there are no extra features that require a secret, ISV-only decoder-ring to unlock?[/quote]
The software is the same regardless of who buys it. A direct customer with a PDSOE control code gets the same features as an ISV who has a PDSOE control code.
Thanks for confirming that they are using the same developer tools. I have wondered in the past if different customers see a different set of OpenEdge ABL development tools. There are some conspicuously missing parts needed for compiling/packaging/deploying applications, and also for managing/refactoring the ABL code in a large and mature application (ie. there is no xref analysis, and there is minimal OO tooling in OpenEdge.)
I've discovered that some of the conspicuously missing parts are available from third-parties, like riverside pct, roundtable, braveheart, and whitestar. I was hoping that Progress would eventually provide some of this stuff to their customers directly, but that is not happening. I suppose it is somewhat of a comfort to know that ISV's are face with the exact same limitations in the OE tool set.
The main difference in the two categories of customers is based on business model and business relationship, not product.
The important difference between the ISV partners and the enterprise-direct customers is that the ISV partners buld their applications and then sell those bundled with the OpenEdge runtime products to their customers. Typically these bundles do not include development tools though some ISV’s may bundle licenses for those too. The ISV provides application maintenance and OpenEdge maintenance and firs-level support. The customer of an ISV has a relationship with the ISV but not with Progress. Usually Progress knows nothing about the ISV’s customer.
The enterprise direct customers buy product from Progress to use with applications they built themselves or perhaps bought source licenses for the application from someone else. This class of customers usually takes care of maintenance of the applications on their own. The business relationship is between the enterprise-direct customer and Progress. No third party is involved in that.