I agree with Michael Wheeler’s recent remark.  In an Open Solutions Alliance newsletter, the CIO and Finance Officer of Redmayne-Bentley said “Our view is that there must be fantastic opportunities for long-term investors among various software companies with at least a foothold in the open source arena.”

We need to look at this in context - what does the current economic melt-down mean to us?  Open source is clearly a better position if you compare it directly with the traditional space, because it’s more flexible and more predictable in terms of cost.

Today’s climate requires new ideas and a strategic look at how to optimize basic parts of our business across the board.  Three rules will cover it:

• Optimize Costs
  Costs are tight right now.  Expense costs are lower in our arena and clearly we need to generate a very simple, fast ROI.  The open source model (try before you buy) is a big advantage in validating solutions.
• Optimize Efficiency
  This means adding value to the core business for partners.  We need to concentrate on producing solutions that customers really need and steer clear of the speculative.
• Optimize Productivity
  We must generate more value in terms of productivity.  This doesn’t mean doing the same things as the competition.  We can’t just provide the same tools for the same performance; we need to provide better performance.

If we can address all three points, we’re not just resisting the financial crisis - we won’t have a financial crisis.

This has been our core strategy since we started the company and we plan to continue along those lines.

Bertrand