sucks that the layoffs came before the deal closed and RSUs paid out lots of people would have quit once they got paid so why do the layoffs now? probably because thoma bravo wants the company to be as small as possible and make it easier to merge riverbed with dynatrace
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Cascade was doing just fine showing great growth until OPNET came around. The OPNET acquisition killed Riverbed. Agreed that the cultures were so different it just was not going to work where culture follows the lead of their founders - Jerry (naive, disconnected and disassociated) Alain/Marc (manipulative, dishonest and controlling). Its time to move on everyone.
AC and MC sold a $3Bn APM vision to Jerry and he took it, hook, line and sinker. His partner left because he knew Jerry had not considered product integration and company culture. The Riverbed sales team are not respected at all in my geo: often referred to as "used car salesman". They chase the buck, close the sale through partners and then step away from any post-sale issues. They'll lose more and more business going forward. WanOp is no longer as important because bandwidth is cheap. RVBD didn't get how specialist NPM was and wanted simpler products.
The completely screwed up the Cascade and OPNET APM products and have just dropped the niche products that built OPNET's foundation.
Thoma Bravo - oops!!
Interesting that Riverbed and IBM are so tightly in bed with the co-operative hard sales push in the US, and thence APAC, on co-branded Fusion sales. If Opnet/RPM do get bundled off to Dynatrace, then all you're really left with is WanOP and Fusion.. and we all know WanOP is a smaller and smaller niche to sell into.
So you've got the big 3 (?) of Storage with a WAN-Op enabled Branch storage product that is already keyed to your product for snapshotting and the like. Step right up, step right up.. Fusion for sale..
"Shut up and take my money"
My sympathy goes out to all, who are in awe and shock here and below. But this is the way PE firms work. The fort started crumbling actually long ago when OPNET was acquired. For the knowledgeable and experienced folks this was already written on the wall then. What on earth can people think of RVBD working well with OPNT? These are NOT only two different technologies, but different worlds. The Cohen brothers saw it but not Jerry and the gang.
Well folks, look ahead: RVBD is NOT the only IT company on the face of the world. There are bright spots in the market and hopefully bright futures for you all. The constant in technology is Change! (not the B Obama type)
/Someone left soon after the OPNT acquisition and now shining............
It's clear to me that TB wanted a smaller company no matter what, and they know that more people will leave after they get their RSUs. Who knows what they have in store for the remaining staff. Merge with another company, chop up RVBD and sell the pieces, or continue to operate a very slim version of RVBD? Your guess is as good as mine.
wondered the same. TB likely assumed that people would leave anyway after RSU. It might think of the following options.
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Lay people off + give all people RSUs, and expect more people to go
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Give people RSU, wait for people to go, then layoff more people.
In terms of morale, I think option 2 might be slightly worse. But either suck.