At the end of last year, Progress acquired Kemp, which had also owned the Flowmon brand for some time. How do these two product lines complement the Progress portfolio?
Progress has a long history as a provider of tools and solutions used to deliver business-critical software solutions. Most of this has been around software development and data integration, but over time we have started to see the growing importance of how these solutions are delivered to the end customer. It’s not enough to just create a great application, which we call Digital Experience Management, but it’s equally important to make sure that the application can be deployed in a secure way and can be run on a platform that works well. We call this application experience management and in this area both Kemp and Flowmon solutions are strong leaders and will be a powerful extension and addition to our portfolio.
Flowmon, as a Czech company, had quite a strong presence on the Polish market. Will the acquisition make Progress want to expand its sales in Poland? What are Progress’ development plans for our market?
It is important to remember that Progress has been present on the Polish market for many years through our other product lines and we have many strong partners and customers here. Over the past few years, we have identified Poland as one of the key countries for growth in the region and have allocated more resources to develop our sales here. From this perspective, Flowmon was a perfect fit for us with its strong market presence and this is definitely something we will continue to build on. We see our WhatsUp Gold network monitoring solution as a great complement to Flowmon and we look forward to helping our existing customers in the region by offering them even more value. The Kemp and MOVEit products are also growing rapidly in Poland and we are now looking at how best to support our growth strategy through further expansion of our partner channel. So to the question of whether we intend to expand our sales in Poland, the answer is definitely yes!
Progress has quite a broad product portfolio – from libraries for developers to solutions supporting IT security. Which Progress products do you think will be of most interest to Polish companies?
As I mentioned, the Flowmon and WhatsUp Gold network monitoring products are something that we think will continue to grow strongly. We also expect strong growth from Kemp Loadmaster and our MOVEit file transfer solution, which is becoming increasingly popular due to the growing need to manage data in a secure and compliant manner. We are also seeing that security concerns and the drive to move solutions to the cloud are leading to even more interest in our data integration products, such as Hybrid Data Pipeline. Nor should we forget our OpenEdge development platform, which underpins many critical applications in Poland, for example in the banking sector, something we expect to continue.
What sets Progress apart from other large IT companies and how can your presence in the Polish market benefit local companies and partners?
Progress has always been a bit hidden in the IT industry, as many of our products are used by other software companies to develop and deliver their software, which may be more widely known among end customers. We have been a public company in the US since the 1980s, but still not that many people recognise us because we sell our products mainly to other IT companies. It also means that our business is almost 100% with partners and I think that is our strongest point.
We have been working with partners for 40 years and we know how much of our business is built on trust and long-term relationships that benefit us, our partners and our mutual customers. Our success is based on the success of our local partners and we know that listening to them and staying close to the Polish market is crucial to our long-term success. For an IT company, Progress has been around for quite a long time and we intend to remain in the markets where we have a long-standing presence as a trusted and reliable supplier.
Progress recently celebrated its 40th anniversary, growing year on year and winning employer of the year awards – what plans does Progress have for the next decade of its existence?
As you mentioned, Progress continues to grow and this has been a clear strategy for the last few years. We have a strong core product portfolio, which we have expanded in recent years with strategic acquisitions, and I expect this to continue. We are actively looking for more companies and products that will fit into our portfolio and that will benefit our partners and customers so that we can grow with them and further invest in our local markets, such as Poland. With this in mind, we do not forget about existing products. In fact, we invest a very large proportion of our revenue in research and development, and 40% of our employees are involved in engineering. We focus on developing the products we have acquired to bring further benefits to customers who have already invested in our technology.
