Borland and Nielsen: 'The Perfect Fit'

Software-development tools suite vendor Borland recently tapped industry veteran Tod Nielsen as CEO. Nielsen, who left his post as senior vice president of marketing and global sales support at Oracle, has held high-level positions at a number of major software players, including BEA Systems and a 12-year turn at Microsoft. He takes over Borland at a time of increased competition in the software development life-cycle space, and will face a tough road to turn the company's financials around. Nielsen recently talked with VARBusiness managing editor/technology Carolyn A. April about the job ahead.

VB: Congratulations on the new job. What made you leave Oracle for Borland?

Nielsen: I look at my career and who I am, and Borland is the perfect fit. I've wanted to be CEO of a public company, and when I got the opportunity to talk to the folks at Borland, even though I was not looking for a job or to leave Oracle, it seemed to be such a logical fit. They have a rich customer base in software development and tools that match my background. I competed against them back in the early days with products like Microsoft Access, DBase and FoxPro. At BEA and Oracle, we understood enterprise customers, the channel and enterprise models, and I look where Borland is and where I can provide leadership on the enterprise.

VB: What is the biggest challenge you face?

Nielsen: Quarterly performance has been off, and we need to set expectations with the Street and external bodies to get things where they need to go and to show license-revenue growth. I am not so worried about performance over the next 90 days as [I am] over the next couple of years.

VB: What has led Borland's market performance to where it is today?

Nielsen: I think it's a question of focusing on what we want to be when we grow up. We have a lot of assets and investments in different areas, but not as much clear direction about what we stand for. In start-ups, you have to have a great focus on one thing because you have no resources. The $100 million-to-$1 billion company thinks it can do tons of things, but it, too, should be focused.

VB: How will Microsoft's entering the development life-cycle space recently with Visual Studio Team System impact how Borland approaches the market?

Nielsen: From my perspective, it's a good thing for us right now. If you look at our sales efforts this year, we have been evangelical about the market. It has been about uphill demand-generation for our partners. With Microsoft coming in, it gives the full software life-cycle management category credibility and demand-pull. It makes our jobs with partners and the channel easier.

VB: Tell me a bit about Borland's channel-partner strategy. Will that change under your leadership?

Nielsen: We have a balanced mix of partners, but we continue to work hard to approach solution providers, VARs and SIs because that is not our legacy. At the end of the day, our partner ecosystem is how we are going to win.