We Want You Back!

Today, Compuware issued a press release announcing completion of our privatization, our new position as the world’s biggest mainframe-dedicated ISV, and my appointment as CEO.

But Compuware’s biggest news of the day was that we earned back the business from a former large enterprise customer that had been lost to a competitor.

While we are excited to regain this customer’s trust, I’m mindful that this customer once made the decision to replace us. This raises a question: What has changed at Compuware to convince a customer to return?

The answer is “a lot.” Not only does the customer we won back think our value proposition is now relevant. They believe we have become the single most relevant ISV in the mainframe market.

They believe this for two reasons. The first reason is that the rules of the System z game have changed radically. New business demands such as mobility and Big Data are driving new mainframe workloads. COBOL 5.1 is creating new opportunities for much-needed operational efficiencies. As a result, this customer has to refresh, recompile and retest thousands of applications with millions of lines of code.

But they can’t rapidly staff up to deal with this rising tide of mainframe IP work, because the supply of experienced mainframers is so limited. So they need a better, faster way of doing the work. And they need it now!

This brings us to the second reason. They believe we have become the single most relevant ISV in the mainframe market. Only Compuware has radically re-invented itself to address the radical changes taking place in the System z world. No one else is offering quarterly drops of new tools and enhancements to existing tools. No one else is so aggressively focused on the challenges of protecting and advancing mainframe IP. And no one else is as committed to empowering next-generation, mainframe-inexperienced developers to contribute to the mainframe IP challenge.

So, yes, it is a very good thing that Thoma Bravo has taken us private. And, yes, it is exciting to become the CEO of the world’s biggest ISV exclusively focused on optimizing mainframe value.

But the best news of all is that, today, a customer came back to Compuware because they needed what we had to offer.

We’ve radically transformed our business over the past five months to achieve startup-like agility—and we now have laser-like focus on the biggest and fastest-growing pain-points for System z shops. That’s why we won back a large enterprise customer from a competitor today. And it’s why we want to earn your business back.