MetaSolv Emerges from a Successful Transformation (cont'd)

Interestingly enough, in 2001 the analysts wanted us to make deeper reductions, but we wanted to make a deeper investment in R&D and now it's paying off. We just launched and sold M6, for example. We made many decisions during the downturn that others are only just starting to make.

Pipeline: Among the changes MetaSolv made early in the downturn was a major change in leadership. What can you tell us about how you and MetaSolv founder Jim Janicki handled the leadership transition together?

Let me first note that we had the same leadership team from mid 2001 to 2003. Through most of the downturn we had consistent leadership and now we're seeing the payoff.

Our competitors were saying that we needed to replace this or that person, but people had to recognize there were market conditions we couldn't change. I give Jim huge credibility and credit. He started planning the transition in 2000 when we first met. He told me then that he was looking for a person to lead the company going forward and to go to the next level, and if you're going to be the guy, you should understand that we want to make an orderly transition. A lot of leaders don't have the foresight to plan and execute that. In the end, it was a three-year, smooth transition, and Jim and I have been able to minimize each other weaknesses and maximize each others' strengths.

Pipeline: Many OSS vendors are guilty of trying to be "all things at once." MetaSolv has a very broad product portfolio. How do you hope and plan to maintain a focused identity while still educating your customers and the market about your range of capabilities?

Holmes: When you think about it, we had gotten feedback in years past that we had only one product and that we needed to have a multi-product portfolio. Now we hear, "you've got multiple products..."

Most simply, we want to be the service fulfillment leader - inventory, provisioning and service activation. We want to help customers in that whole service delivery process from order to activate. Our competitors are typically niche players in one segment, but now they are starting to say they can do a little bit of everything. What we've been able to do is put together all the pieces. We looked at our customers, our competitive landscape and the reality of being a one-product company; we didn't think that was a good idea. If you look at our acquisitions - those products are generating more than half our revenue. If we hadn't moved toward these strategy-driven acquisitions, we would be a different company today.

Also, being a multi-product company lets us be in the best of breed mode when our customers want it, or we can play in a solutions mode. For example, we can really add value through a best of suite or best of solutions orientation - and that's where you are brought into a BT or a Brazil Telecom as the entire suite. On the best of breed side, such as with service activation, we're supporting mobile services - like Vodafone Pacific in Australia, New Zealand and Fiji, and mmO2 in the UK. We also provide activation for others for traditional voice, like KPN in the Netherlands, and also for data services like at Bell Canada. There are other customers for IP VPNs like AT&T and Energis. So the value we bring unlike some competitors - one focuses on IP, one on frame relay - is multi-vendor and multi-service. We want to get away from the silo approach, which carriers need to do for the sake of their cost structure. For a while, one of our largest competitors could talk about a solutions orientation, but not for next generation services like mobile or IP. Now those competitors are outlining strategies we developed three years ago - and that's while we continue to win in the marketplace and move forward.

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