Here we are, the end of another wonderful Serena user conference. I feel that most people are excited about what they saw and are really coming away from this conference energized about what has just been released (Business Mashups on Demand) as well as what is coming (Agile on Demand). The format for this year’s event proved to be radically different than in the past, and although it had a noticeably more “marketing” feel to it, people were by-in-large happy with the technical content in the breakout sessions.
On this final day, I had the distinct pleasure of sitting down with one of Serena’s key partners, Change Dynamics. Specifically, I was able to talk with Paul Mitchell, Steve Silva, and David Schroeder. Paul, who incidentally had FABULOUS hair, runs the eastern sales region; Steve runs the western region; and David was one of their star Sale Engineers. Change Dynamics’ history is rather interesting and ironically parallels that of Serena’s in that they started off as a consulting business; Serena too started as a consulting business in it’s early years. Due to the consistency of the engagements, the Executive Staff at Change Dynamics decided to “productize” their consulting business resulting in their flagship product, IT Symphony. IT Symphony encompasses an IT Service Desk, Release Management, and CMDB [Configuration Management Database] offering featuring exciting new functionality in the form of a visualization tool. When building the product, Change Dynamics knew that it needed a really robust workflow engine, so they chose to partner with Serena and use TeamTrack.
JB – “So, you’ve been working with Serena prior to the new Business Mashup platform, correct?”
CD – “Yes, our product was integrated with the 6.x TeamTrack product and now it works with the new Business Mashups platform.”
JB – “Are you an OEM of Business Mashups?”
CD – “Yes, we are now; previously we weren’t. When we sold our product there was essentially two deals taking place, but now we are an OEM of the Serena Business Mashup platform.”
JB – “What makes your product unique compared to some of the big boy’s in the space?”
CD – “That’s a great question! One of our key differentiators is that our platform is 80% out-of-the-box and 20% configuration. Compared to the BMC’s, CA’s, HP’s of the world who rely heavily on pro-services to provide custom configuration resulting in a much longer time-to-market comparatively speaking. We really tout ourselves as being quick and easy to implement out-of-the-box!”
JB – “And that is so important in today’s marketplace, right? IT shops want to get things done as rapidly as possible, finance wants quick ROI, and execs want to have that competitive edge.”
CD – “Absolutely!”
JB – “You mentioned that your product has CMDB as a key feature, so does that mean that you guys are pretty heavy into ITIL [IT Infrastructure Library]?”
CD – “Yes, primarily from the service support management side of ITIL. Actually, we are an ITIL alliance solution, we’ve incorporated all the ITIL services best practices into the product which is another key differentiator.”
JB – “Is this your first Serena User Conference?”
CD – “No, actually we’ve been a Serena partner for 4 years now, so we’ve been coming to these for a while. It’s interesting to note that our relationship with Serena is dynamic in that we are not only a partner but Serena also uses our IT Symphony product in it’s own IT department for it’s ITIL effort!”
JB – “Yep, as an IT guy I’m familiar with that! How much of an impact does being an OEM of Serena Business Mashups have on your relationship with Serena?”
CD- “HUGE!!!! With the new OEM arrangement, we can go into new opportunities and sell both Serena and Change Dynamics, offering a great up-sell for the Business Mashup platform or cross-sell of other Serena offerings! Likewise, existing TeamTrack customers are great opportunities for us, even more so now that we support the new Business Mashup platform as well!”
JB – “Of course we love that! How about integrations with other Serena products?”
CD – “We have done other integrations, but we typically handle those as one-off service engagements.”
JB – “So how did you feel about this year’s conference?”
CD – “It was great, we got a lot of exposure, talked with a number of prospects, Serena reps, and other partners; overall it really opened a lot of doors. In one instance, we actually had a customer of ours here that timed their visit to our booth when we were demoing to a new prospect and dynamic of the situation created quite a good opportunity for us!”
JB – “From a partner perspective, would you recommend this event to other partners?”
CD – “Absolutely! I was impressed not only with the quantity but also the quality of the traffic! We had a lot of international interest that was tremendous and we are really excited about working with those folks in their markets as well!”
JB – “Well guys, it’s been a pleasure talking with you and look forward to seeing you at next year’s TAG event!”
CD – “Yes indeed, thank you very much!”
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