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Short trip to Atlanta

[Today’s run: 3.4 miles]

We had a good conference in Atlanta.  The software company recently changed hands and the new owners put on a conference for the current users, or what is left of them.

The previous company had not been doing much in the way of marketing and the product was slowly dying.  The user community was shrinking.  There were a few new features brought out, but not many.  And they were always trying to make more money off of added services and consulting.

So now the new company is trying to play catch-up with the product while also hanging on to the current users.

The conference was good.  I think it was convincing that the new owners are on a different track and actually want some success.  It appears to me it will take 3-5 years to get the product back to some level of competitiveness and start to win new customers.  Can they keep the old ones on the line to at least have some cash flow while all of this happens?  Only time will tell.  The current customers are the more conservative ones, those who had not already left to other products.  So maybe a good rousing conference and some successful demonstrations is enough to keep them hanging for another couple of years.

It is not really my place to say.  I’m a computer guy, and I was encouraged by what they had to say about the direction of the technology.  I don’t have much opinion about the functional gaps and I know nothing, really,  about what the competitors are offering.  I do know that changing products is painful.

Atlanta was nice.  The people are friendly and we were at a very nice hotel in a nice part of town.  I got out for a run on one occasion.  Otherwise it was mostly time spent in the hotel and a couple of nearby restaurants.   Atlanta turned out to be just over 4 hours from our house so we drove.  I think now that maybe we could go there more often if we want to have a taste of city life for a weekend or whatever.  I’m more of a country person, myself.