Inprise: the first stage to recovery is admitting you have a problem

It's not often in this increasingly corporate world of IT that a chief executive is honest enough to admit and discuss mistakes made. But Dale Fuller, CEO of Inprise, did just that in a wide-ranging interview with silicon.com earlier this week.

The crucial fact, however, is that in the world according to Dale, those mistakes were made before he ever arrived on the scene. So just how fair is his assessment of the software company's recent history? He says that under the stewardship of his predecessor, Del Yukom, Inprise lacked "discipline, direction and execution". A dramatic drop in revenues in 1997 to $151m down from $245m the year before, appears to bear this out. Meanwhile, the decision to change the company's name from Borland to Inprise was a pointless and costly exercise. "Borland is a brand everyone knows," said Fuller, and he's right. Yukom duly fell on his sword in March 1999, and Fuller - already a very wealthy man following a career which included heading up Apple's successful PowerBook division - was persuaded to try and take Inprise/Borland back to the glories of the early 1990s. In the 18 months in charge there have been some signs of a turnaround. However, problems still persist. The share price languishes at just over $5, sales growth - when it happens - is sluggish, and the company got its fingers burnt by a failed merger with fellow Linux supporter, Corel. Fuller must take some responsibility for the last of these but can probably be excused blame for the first two. Inprise's problems are deep rooted. It is a maker of software tools in a world where bigger companies provide tools as a value-add. The result is lower and lower margins. To offset this, Inprise has moved in the world of application services. There again it has come up against some familiar and bigger names: Microsoft, Sun, and IBM to name three. Fuller runs a medium-sized company at a time of consolidation. That's why Inprise will continue to be mentioned as an acquisition target despite the best efforts of the man in charge. Staying independent will be a notable trick indeed. The twist in the Inprise tale lies with Microsoft. Last year the two firms struck a deal which gave Microsoft preferred stock which can be converted to a ten per cent stake. A major say in a company that was a whisker away from becoming a Linux 'powerhouse' may be too tempting to turn down.