Dear Customer,
I am Randy Jacops, the CEO of Idera, Inc. You likely saw the press announcement last month announcing Idera’s acquisition of Travis CI (hereafter, Travis). Here is a link to the announcement if you have not seen it: Idera, Inc. Acquires Travis CI GmbH for Continuous Integration Capabilities.
I’d like to welcome you to the Idera family and look forward to building on Travis’ history of market leading continuous integration products for software developers and testing professionals. I’m writing this letter to introduce Idera and explain why we are excited to acquire Travis.
Idera delivers B2B software productivity tools that allow technical users to do more with less, faster. The company's brands span three divisions—Database Tools, Developer Tools and Testing Tools—with products used and evangelized by millions of community members and more than 50,000 customers worldwide. Continuous integration accelerates software delivery, improves developer productivity, and enables technical innovation to drive tangible business improvements. This reality explains why Travis enjoys the support of over 700,000 current users. Travis was the most innovative tool to market and continues to be the leading continuous integration solution.
I became Idera’s CEO in 2013 and during my tenure, I focused the company on long-term customer relationships built on innovation, quality, and technical excellence. I strongly believe a successful software company drives customer success via:
High quality software – complete testing with significant automated code coverage Ease of use – simplified user experience, particularly the install/upgrade process, measured by time to value for new users Application speed – minimal wait time, robust scalability and real-time analytics A software company that delivers these metrics will have generally happy customers. Delivering prioritized innovation and features on a reliable schedule advances the relationship from generally happy to customer success. Idera prioritizes investment to reflect these goals and we will apply the same philosophy to Travis’ products.
As you likely know, Travis is a respected leader in the open source community and provides commercial options for customers looking for enhanced features, performance and support. We plan to continue supporting the open source community while expanding commercial offerings for existing and future customers. Additionally, Travis integrates with multiple tools in the software development lifecycle, making the platform highly complementary to Idera’s Developer and Testing Tools offerings.
In the past 18 months, Idera acquired 10 companies, expanding our global footprint and enabling customers to benefit from new and integrated technologies from a trusted source. When we complete an acquisition, there are inevitable questions about possible strategy changes and our long-term intent for the business. I assure you we are serious investors with a long history of acquiring and investing to improve businesses and products. We understand new relationships may cause anxiety for customers worried about the future of their Travis investment.
As a policy, we do not respond to speculation or observations from people who doubt our resolve. Past experience affirms debating speculation and emotion do not serve our interests or our customers. Therefore, we will focus on moving forward and delivering on promises. We look forward to working with you to deliver products our customers and users continue to love.
From a communication standpoint, we believe in maintaining open dialogue with customers interested in helping validate development priorities. Accordingly, we encourage active community discussions (and respond regularly) to ensure the best customer outcomes. A key question from customers and users has been why the founders sold and how Idera will change the business. We expect changes, but we also believe Travis’ customers will benefit as we reinvigorate innovation, expand capability, and recommit to the ease of product use loved by customers worldwide. We know that change can be scary or prompt questions. To my point above, we ask for your support as we prove our strategy’s veracity by delivering on our promises.
If you have questions, please feel free to contact me directly (randy.jacops@idera.com). With over 50,000 customers, it’s not practical to maintain a direct dialogue with every customer, but we will respond to questions. Most importantly, we will communicate future product roadmap reviews, webinars, and related content you will find interesting. I encourage you to participate in all these sessions to ensure a mutually valuable relationship.
Thank you for your business and I look forward to the future.
Regards,
Randy Jacops CEO, Idera, Inc.