Five questions with BMC CEO Bob Beauchamp

BMC CEO Bob Beauchamp says the company's cloud management software is gaining traction just as the company's mainframe cycle picks up.

We caught up with Beauchamp for a brief interview following the company's solid third quarter earnings report. BMC, which competes with CA, has been business forging partnerships with the likes of Salesforce.com and Amazon Web Services.

To BMC, which automates service delivery in data centers, the cloud is a natural extension to its core abilities. Here's a recap of our chat:

When will cloud computing be material to BMC? Beauchamp says the cloud delivery is already becoming material, but the company hasn't broken it out as a line item. Beauchamp noted 20 cloud computing wins in its most recent quarter including one transaction that ran $2.5 million to $3 million. "This is just the start. Often we come into a cloud deal to set things up and do a proof of concept," he explains. "Then we come back and scale it up and do more business. The winner of these deals will be the new standard for enterprise cloud deployments and hybrid data centers. We're at an architectural moment in time where the cloud shift is occurring." How do these deals work? Beauchamp says every transaction is different. One Federal agency is approaching BMC for its cloud life cycle management application and now looking into its data center software. One large energy company didn't want to hear anything about the cloud because it was all hype. "All we did was remove every reference to the cloud in the presentation," says Beauchamp. "Automation, self-service, transparency and business manager still applies to IT."

On partnerships, Beauchamp says that BMC teamed up with Amazon Web Services early on. "AWS came to us because large enterprises were worried about shadow IT," says Beauchamp, referring to the potential for multiple employees starting server instances with a credit card. "Enterprises were fine with using amazon, but wanted compliance and standard provisioning."

What about the Salesforce.com partnership? Beauchamp says that the Salesforce.com partnership is key to both companies. BMC already has Remedy---its IT service software---on demand and built on Force.com. Now, the companies have launched RemedyForce. "Salesforce.com and BMC will both sell the product and share revenue," says Beauchamp.

What's the take on software consolidation? Beauchamp says BMC will continue to go shopping, but it is looking at acquisitions to fill a specific roadmap. "We're not just going to be a consolidator of components," he says. "We've proven successful with acquisitions like BladeLogic and Remedy, but generally we're looking for small and medium-sized companies. We just met some partners at VC firms and there are more startups than they've seen. There's a rich field to play as the enterprise market has picked up."

On mainframes, Beauchamp says that BMC was helped along by a new product cycle from IBM. More importantly though, enterprises are interested in boosting capacity. "We saw capacity orders pick back up," says Beauchamp. "Companies feel better and have the cash to build out."

Related:

• Tech earnings roundup: BMC's third quarter tops estimates
• Salesforce.com, BMC expand alliance, launch RemedyForce
• Cisco, BMC forge cloud infrastructure partnership
• BMC acquires GridApp Systems; Expands Salesforce.com partnership
• Paradigms shift, don't fade: Mainframe support steady