Transcript - Gary Gregory of Rocket Software shares the Rocket - Zumasys news
Almost verbatim transcription of the opening from Gary Gregory of Rocket Software’s at the MultiValue User Group Meeting today 14 October 2021.
“I'm the President of the database and connectivity business unit, which includes all the MultiValue products. And at exactly 10 minutes ago, we made a major announcement that went out over the news wired.
Rocket has acquired the database and tools products from Zumasys. So now we'll be adding AccuTerm, jBASE, MVConnect and MV Dashboard and OpenQM to the set of products that are developed and marketed and supported by Rocket Software.
As part of that deal, Zumasys, which had been the home of those products, will become our first MV Modernization Partner. They’re going to expand their business practice of acquiring and modernising MultiVaule ISVs. That is going to let them focus on an aspect of the business that they do very well and will focus on our aspect.
Now, before going into a little more detail that it might be at the surface a little confusing. BUT if you go way back, you'd find that Zumasys and Rocket used to partner very closely, then we went through a period where we were competitors and now we're going to be working closely together again, in a new way.
The way I look at it, which is probably selfish, but as the President I'm allowed to be a little selfish, is that it's a lot like my relationship with my kids. At any given moment in our relationship, you're not so sure I know what I'm doing and we get a little contentious, but you hope that as things go forward the family, as a unit behaves well, and grows. So that's what this is all about.
What we're going to do is Rocket is going to continue to innovate at scale. One of the things that we took as a major focus five years ago, was we realised that we have all of these great technologies that you depend on. We have 1000s of customers throughout the world that depend on our products. We've made the fortune 50, I think we're up to 48, the fortune 50, over half of the Fortune 500. Basically, a large part of the world depends on products from Rocket.
We would tell our customers, you've depended on us for 32 years, don't worry about it, you can spend the next 50 years depending on our products. For that to be true, there has to be sustainability. And we're really good at sustaining technology. We know how to do development, we know how to build products, we know how to keep current with technology. “
But sometimes we'd look around and go, “Wow, when we're all slowly creeping up into our retirement age. It kind of nice to look around and notice that there are younger people who are just as excited about this technology as you are. That was a very difficult transition for Rocket. We began that journey five years ago. We are now at a point where the average age of our company has dropped out in half, well almost that much. That's the commitment we make to our partners and customers that they can keep depending on this even as they hand it over to their next generation.
We have a kind of a succession plan and the ability to keep these products going forever. So that's the part we're going to focus on - providing a sustainable growth path where innovation and modernization of all of the products. We're also going to use utilise the fact that at our scale, and with the breadth of products we offer.”