Easy Ask and Progress Software’s Declining Earnings
September 20, 2008
Easy Ask is a search system owned by Progress Software. Like Endeca and Mercado, Easy Ask delivers a system that can make an e-commerce site generate more revenue. But Easy Ask, like other search companies gobbled by larger firms, has to fight for respect in a contentious, volatile world. You can get more information about Easy Ask e-commerce system here.
The company has been enhancing the product. The full name is Progress EasyAsk, but my spelling checker balks at the squishing of two words together. The product has been sent to the gym and fed protein milk shakes. Its beefier functionalities are described by the company this way:
Progress Easy Ask for Operational Business Intelligence (BI) fills the gap between search and BI systems to allow executives, analysts, business managers, and professional staff to access the information they need to improve business operations.
Progress released its third quarter results, and you can scan Forbes’ take on the report card here, and the news was not bad but not good either. Progess’ revenue slipped, down from $127 million in Q3 2007 to $123 million in Q3 2008. Progress has been diversifying and leveraging its acquisitions, but if this trend continues, I wonder if Easy Ask will get the financial injections to which search and content processing companies are addicted. If not, Easy Ask may face a tough 2009.
Can Progress get its revenue back on track? I think it will take significant management work. Progress has to justify its products’ value when clients are looking at low cost tools from other vendors, open source, Microsoft’s array of servers. Dot Net, and programming tools, and brutal competition in search.
It’s too early to sound a stronger warning about Progress, but the company’s results for the next 12 weeks will be interesting to review when those data become available.
Stephen Arnold, September 20, 2008
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2 Responses to “Easy Ask and Progress Software’s Declining Earnings”
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Is low cost tools just getting tighter and tighter the next 12 weeks. And Its beefier functionalities of winning traders have not changed for the next 12 weeks. For me, Progress Software is very challenging.
Braylon Lester
I have not paid much attention to Easy Ask in the last month or two. I will check it out when the next financial report becomes available.
Stephen Arnold, October 21, 2008