Prompt Cast
The Acquisition of Opsware by HP: A Story of Growth and Integration
TLDR Opsware, an early infrastructure-as-a-service company, was acquired by HP due to its market leadership in data center automation and its potential to strengthen HP's business in IT operations. Despite challenges in integration, Opsware was able to innovate and expand its platform while HP struggled to do so, highlighting the importance of timing, market readiness, and the ability to execute in entrepreneurship.
Timestamped Summary
00:00
This episode of the podcast is about the 2007 acquisition of Opsware by HP, and the guest, Michelle Feaster, will share the story from the HP side of the acquisition.
05:47
Opsware, originally founded as LoudCloud, was an early infrastructure-as-a-service company that aimed to provide virtual servers and managed services, similar to what AWS offers today, but failed due to timing and lack of readiness for enterprise cloud adoption.
12:10
Opsware's growth was driven by the exponential growth and complexity of virtualization in IT, which led to their belief that they needed to own the technology and be a key control point in the future of IT.
18:12
Opsware's advantage was that they had the persona of server admins who needed to manage environments at scale, and they had the tooling for it, which allowed them to build an incredible software company.
23:29
Opsware was the market leader in data center automation and HP, realizing that they couldn't build their way to victory in a consolidated market, decided to acquire Opsware.
28:32
Opsware was seen as a strategic land for HP in the IT operations market, and the decision to acquire Opsware was driven by the belief that automation and monitoring would converge and that Opsware would strengthen HP's existing business in IT operations.
33:54
Opsware was chosen over BladeLogic as the acquisition target for HP because Opsware had a better sales motion and a broader product suite, even though BladeLogic had a better product in terms of usability.
39:08
Opsware was chosen over BladeLogic as the acquisition target for HP because Opsware had a better sales motion and a broader product suite, even though BladeLogic had a better product in terms of usability.
44:28
Opsware faced challenges in integrating with HP, particularly in terms of sales organization and enablement, as they had to train and enable the HP sales team to effectively sell Opsware alongside the rest of the portfolio.
50:16
Opsware was able to ship products quickly and expand their platform to include dedicated feature flagging, warehouse native experimentation, and product analytics, while HP struggled to innovate due to a culture mismatch and a lack of courage to bet on disruptive technologies.
55:58
Opsware was integrated into the broader HP software organization in order to transform the culture and software organization, and the integration strategy was driven by the overarching vision of bringing in fresh DNA.
01:02:08
Michel Feaster believes that the success of a startup depends on the idea, the market, timing, and the team's ability to execute, and that entrepreneurship requires both intellect and courage.
01:07:51
Ben Horowitz is a valuable sounding board and advisor to CEOs, providing guidance on management challenges, leadership style, hiring executives, and evaluating hires for leverage.
01:13:33
The guest, Michel Feaster, can be found on Twitter and Facebook, and is willing to help early founders who are terrified and need advice.
Categories:
Technology
Business
