Reinvention: Ten Companies That Changed and Strengthened

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The economic downturn that started in 2008 and hit the IT industry harder than any wave since the dot-com meltdown has had its effect.

Many believe that the financial turmoil not only took a toll on strong companies and eliminated many of the weaker ones, it permanently changed the way information technology will be built and delivered. There is no doubt that much is changing. To survive a tough period is one story. To reinvent a technology, a product or a strategy, and then thrive in the process, is another entirely.

This month we say good-bye to an unforgiving 2009 by looking at 10 companies that didn't just make the best of it, they became stronger through reinvention. Some altered time-tested products to fit the new demands of the marketplace. Some entered entirely new areas to leverage growth in cloud computing or mobility. And some shifted gears for a landscape that will be so much different in 2010 than 2008 that in many ways it looks like the IT industry itself has been reinvented.

To make this list of successful reinventors, the CRN Test Center evaluated a company's products, technologies or strategy; it then evaluated whether the company mapped out an entirely new course or approach; and then it looked at whether it dovetailed with the market's changing needs.

SpikeSource: Headed up by industry pioneer Kim Polese (who ran the group at Sun Microsystems that brought Java to the world), SpikeSource in its earliest days described itself as "an open-source IT services company," giving ISVs and enterprises a straightforward way to test and certify applications on open-source technology. The company, though, has reinvented itself into what could arguably be one of the most important players in today's IT buildout: it works to provide cross-platform, multi-technology testing of software throughout virtually all links in the chain. Polese, in a keynote at Everything Channel's XChange Tech Innovator conference this fall, noted that "Software, in a way, is the last industry to be automated." Delivering on the promise of integration between the cloud and on-premise data center, the on-premise data center and the rest of an enterprise, an enterprise and array of mobile platforms like iPhone, Android and Symbian, is not an easy thing. But SpikeSource has built itself into a company that is working to take on just that task, and working in partnerships with companies like Intel and Microsoft in the process.

One of the company's solutions, the SpikeSource Compliance Framework, has established what it says is a collaborative, standardized workflow for developers to put applications through deep and complete compliance testing across a number of different platforms. The result: the ability for developers to cut down on the time it takes to build compliance-ready software that delivers value through the entire IT chain.

Combined with new areas like the "app store" model for software delivery, SpikeSource has rebuilt itself into a company that sits at a critical intersection in the coming buildout of multiplatform, multifunction technology for hosted, cloud and mobile strategies.

Sybase: Founded in 1984, Sybase rose to the ranks of one of the market's top database providers--before realizing that it needed to change in a market dominated by giants like Oracle, IBM and Microsoft. So the company reorganized itself financially after the dot-com meltdown and reorganized its business by creating a Web-based database offering. But in 2009 additional changes to the market took place, including a notable shift in use patterns to favor handheld devices. Thus it launched iAnywhere Mobile Office--an application that integrates business e-mail and workflow with Apple's iPhone platform. It supports Windows Mobile 5/6/6.1, Nokia S60 3rd and 5th Edition, Sony Ericsson UIQ 3.0 and iPhone OS wireless devices. The CRN Test Center took a look at it on the iPhone, after installing its management software on a Windows 2003 Server, and found a sleek app that integrates easily into an enterprise with both security, reliability and mobility requirements. It does compete with the native Exchange support provided by Apple in iPhone 3.0 and 3.1, but has enough administrative and remote admin support (with Windows Vista) to make a good case. Sybase has shown it can bridge its enterprise heritage with new and emerging platforms in a compelling fashion.

Novell: The Waltham, Mass.-based software maker has gone through several iterations in its lifetime: from a competitor with Microsoft in the network OS business, to focusing more on collaboration, to a dalliance with WordPerfect (before selling that business to Corel), to buying SuSE and focusing on open source. But over the past several months, Novell has begun to sharpen its focus on cloud computing. Earlier this year, for example, it began touting its Novell Cloud Security Service--which uses broker technology for identity management at both ends of Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings. Unlike the earlier days of hosted IT, issues like regulatory compliance must now factor into many enterprise migrations to cloud- or hybrid-based IT. Novell has reinvented itself again, and this time is positioned for the cloud buildout. As one Novell executive put it recently, the company has become an "arms dealer" for cloud computing.

ViewSonic: As the market for LCDs and projectors continues to feel margin pressure (as it has for the past several years), ViewSonic executives decided to push the company to use its technical expertise in a new area for it: personal computers. Earlier in 2009, the Walnut Creek, Calif.-based company rolled out its first line of small-form-factor PCs, including the ultrathin PC Mini VOT 132. The Test Center examined the 18.2-ounce unit, based on the Intel Atom platform, measuring 5.5 x 7.5 x 1 inch, and preloaded with Windows 7. It's clear with this product that ViewSonic has taken much of its intellectual capital from designing space-conservative LCDs, dead-simple out-of-the-box technology and applied it to PCs. With an anticipated, enterprise PC refresh cycle at the beginning stages, ViewSonic has reinvented itself at just the right time to take advantage of both its expertise and changes in the market. We can recommend the PC Mini VOT 132 (although ViewSonic may want to rethink its naming conventions in this space), and believe VARs and solution providers can now look at the company as one more option for delivering desktop technology.

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