Robert Coates Responds to Borland's Quarterly Conference Call

DALLAS, Aug. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Robert Coates, an ex-director and major shareholder in Borland Software issued the following press release today:

Anyone who stayed late yesterday to hear Borland's quarterly conference call had to be disappointed. The company's interim CEO Scott Arnold failed to provide investors and analysts with any plan for maximizing shareholder value.

This failure is all the more surprising because Arnold joined Borland in November 2003 as Chief Operating Officer with direct responsibility for shaping the company's business strategy. Although Arnold had no experience in managing operations or a software company or software developers, he did bring fifteen years experience in strategic planning to his new role as COO. Presumably that is why the company's CEO at the time, Dale Fuller, hired him.

Arnold's failure to produce a meaningful plan of action for Borland has cost the shareholders dearly. Most importantly, Scott Arnold failed to recognize and respond to the challenge to the company's JBuilder software from Eclipse. Now he has missed the opportunity to learn from his mistakes and tell investors how he is going to make up for the implosion in JBuilder revenues.

Shareholders didn't need to hire Arnold to tell them as he did yesterday that one of his clear objectives for the second half of 2005 is to "enable customer success." Clearly Borland's employees and partners have already made that a key priority and to imply otherwise is to negate their dedication and hard work.

Shareholders also didn't need Arnold to tell them that he is "crafting a new Borland culture." There's nothing wrong with its old culture. In fact my investment in Borland is based on my belief that Borland is one of the world's greatest innovators in software technology, has market leading products, world class developers and intensely loyal customers. Frankly, that's why I continue to be an investor in Borland and didn't give up on this investment long ago.

But Borland also needs a plan of action that offsets the rapid decline in JBuilder revenues and returns the company to profitability in the near term. I will soon be submitting a plan to do just that to the Borland board of directors.

Contact: Christy McDonald @ cmcdonald@rcoates.com or (214) 256-5970.