Progress Software to fund startups to push new product

Company recently launched a new application-platform-as-a-service for building and managing data-rich biz applications on cloud, mobile or social platforms

New York Stock Exchange-listed software company, Progress Software Corporation, is considering providing venture capital to startup companies in India and Boston, its global headquarters, and help them develop applications using its recently-launched ‘Pacific’ platform, according to president and chief executive officer Philip Pead.

“Software developers right here in Hyderabad can actually compete more quickly by using Pacific rather than using traditional control language platforms like Java, .Net and RedHat. We are working towards encouraging such startups. We want to get going on it (venture funding) as soon as possible,” he said, while declining to share more details.

Progress Software, which has its development centre in Hyderabad employing close to 270 of its global workforce of 1,000, had in 2012 divested its non-core assets to refocus on providing cost-effective, on-premise, cloud and mobile-enabled platforms for developing, deploying and maintaining business applications.

As part of its strategic plan, the company recently launched Pacific, a new application-platform-as-a-service (aPaaS) for building and managing data-rich business applications on cloud, mobile or social platforms.

On OpenEdge, a complete development platform for building multi-language applications, Pead said the product was right now being deployed as an on-premise application. “It will be migrated to our cloud platform by October,” he added.   

Progress Software, which reported revenues greater than $300 million in the first six months of the 2013 calendar, gets 54 per cent of its revenues generated from outside of the US, especially from MEA (Middle East and Africa) and Asia-Pacific.

“While we have a big presence in ANZ (Australia and New Zealand), we are beginning to understand the opportunities in China,” Pead said, adding not diminishing Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and South Korea, the four big markets for Progress Software would be India, China, Japan and ANZ, going forward.