We have some exciting news to share today. When Tobias and I founded Gurock Software more than 10 years ago, and when we released our now flagship test management tool TestRail in 2010, we never envisioned that we would get the opportunity to work with so many amazing customers to help them build better software. Since its release, TestRail has become the number #1 modern test management tool with thousands of companies using it every day.
We have been able to accomplish this with a relatively small team by being laser focused on customer service and heavily investing in TestRail’s product development and our cloud infrastructure. When IDERA approached us earlier this year to discuss a possible acquisition, we thought a lot about the additional resources this would bring to the product, team and our customers.
Especially with our fast growing world-wide customer base, becoming part of a US & international software company gives us access to important infrastructure we didn’t have before. We are excited to announce that as of last week, Gurock Software has joined and is now part of the IDERA family! We couldn’t be happier about the decision and the many benefits this will bring.
I’m also happy to say that the entire existing Gurock team will stay with the company and will continue working on our products SmartInspect and TestRail and will continue working with our customers. Being part of IDERA will allow us to benefit from the additional resources a larger company provides, while staying focused on our existing approach on product management and customer service.
What does this mean for our existing customers? For now there won’t be too many changes. You will continue working closely with our existing team to get the most out of our products. And we will continue to release big product updates to help you work more efficiently (we have some big product announcements planned for later this year, stay tuned). In fact, one big reason we decided to join IDERA is that the team shares our long-term vision for our product roadmap and our focus on customer success.
Behind the scenes we will start on-boarding additional team members and integrating additional resources as soon as possible. Our longer term goal is to further accelerate TestRail’s product development for even faster release cycles, we will also add more members to our customer success team and we will be able to benefit from a larger partner network to help more teams adopt TestRail. If you have any questions, feedback or comments, please feel free to reach out to Tobias, Lara or myself!
Randy Jacops, CEO of IDERA, also wanted to take the opportunity to welcome all customers to the IDERA family and please see Randy’s message below.
Cheers,
Dennis & Tobias
Gurock Co-Founders
Welcome to IDERA
Hello Everyone,
My name is Randy Jacops and I am the CEO of Idera, Inc (IDERA). We recently acquired Gurock Software GmbH (Gurock) and it is my privilege to introduce IDERA and welcome you to the IDERA family. IDERA has more than 20,000 successful customer relationships, and we have a history of world-class retention levels emphasizing our commitment to customer success. IDERA actually consists of two businesses: IDERA, focused on database lifecycle management solutions, and Embarcadero, focused on development tools to accelerate solutions. Gurock complements our capability in both areas and will continue as a stand-alone entity within the IDERA family.
I became CEO in 2013 and during my tenure have focused the company on long-term customer relationships built on innovation, quality, and ease of use. I strongly believe a successful software company starts with a focus on driving customer success via:
- High quality software – complete testing with significant automated code coverage
- Ease of use – simplified user experience, particularly the install/upgrade process
- Application speed – minimal wait time, robust scalability, and real-time analytics
A software company that delivers these metrics will have generally happy customers. Delivering prioritized innovation and features on a reliable schedule advances the relationship from generally happy to customer success. IDERA prioritizes investment to reflect these goals, and I am delighted to note Gurock shares the same philosophy.
We are excited to partner with Gurock’s founders to invest in enhancing the product and expanding the customer base. Gurock has a proven record of delivering exceptional product and value to customers. We expect to maintain the best of Gurock by retaining the founders and employees, maintaining the product family focused on testing solutions, and continuing the simple, elegant user interface cherished by customers.
Over the past several years, Gurock grew to a customer base exceeding 5,000 with high retention and organic customer growth. We attribute this to the founder’s relentless focus on reducing friction in the trial experience, sales process, customer support, and test integration process. We are committed to continuing this focus and delivering the value you expect from Gurock. To confirm our commitment, we plan to continue the Gurock brand with the same leadership team focused on test management solutions that help many of the world’s best software teams build better products.
As a large global company, we can provide global support, sales, and development teams to enhance your experience with Gurock software. Put simply, our goal is to continue the best of Gurock while providing the capital and resources to expand the products and grow customer relationships.
From an ongoing communication standpoint, we believe in maintaining dialogue with customers interested in contributing. We believe user communities deliver significant customer value and will continue investing appropriately. We also believe that change facilitates innovation and increases value for our customers. We will remain committed to these principles and look forward to working with you to improve every day and help you get the most out of our products and solutions.
If you have questions, please feel free to contact me directly (you can reach me at randy (dot) jacops (at) idera.com). With more than 25,000 customers, it’s not practical to maintain a direct dialogue with every customer, but we will respond to questions. Most importantly, we will communicate future product roadmap reviews, webinars, and related content you will find interesting. I encourage you to participate in all of these sessions so you have an opportunity to provide feedback on our plans.
Thank you for your business and I look forward to the future!
Regards,
Randy Jacops
CEO, Idera, Inc.
