It gets quiet around the office over the holidays. I like to use this time to reflect on the year behind us, both from the industry perspective, as well as from the Telerik perspective. It's the only 5 days out of the 365 in the year when we are not in a turbulent whirlwind of activity.
From an industry perspective, 2011 was pretty dynamic and we saw some really powerful trends pick up steam:
What's common amongst these? It's several things:
But let's take a quick look back at 2011 and I will get back to 2012 shortly… From our internal perspective, 2011 was a very transformational year at Telerik as we made a number of investments, some visible, some not yet, to be able to provide developers with solutions to all of the 5 industry shifts we are seeing and the associated challenges.
Traditionally, Telerik has been addressing only points #3 and #4, and to some extent #2 (only in the limited world of Windows Phone 7). Many people still see Telerik as a UI controls company. We are victims of our own success - that's where we started, that's what most people use our products for, and that's where we have established ourselves as market leaders. In 2011, we did a lot to continue our momentum in that space and bring the best UI tooling on the market across all Microsoft presentation platforms. With the up and coming introduction of our Windows 8 tooling, Telerik will be in a unique position to deliver the industry's leading UI toolset to Microsoft developers.
With the introduction of Kendo UI in 2011, we made an important step and transcended the Microsoft boundary and the world of Enterprise LOB applications. With Kendo UI, we are ready for the HTML5 wave and the next-generation mobile application development.
That said, in 2011, Telerik made a lot of progress in the tooling area as well - our tools for better development grew and improved. In 2011 we added 2 new products - JustTrace and JustDecompile. JustMock continued its rise to prominence. JustCode got out of its teenage years and today delivers pretty much everything you'll need for development productivity. Our Data Tools also matured considerably and currently Telerik has the most powerful, and probably also the easiest to use, .NET ORM for Enterprise development.
While we don't mind to be seen as a UI controls vendor, it's just now that people are starting to recognize us a premier vendor of productivity tools too. In reality, we've outgrown even that label. UI controls and .NET developer tools is where we started, that's what matters, that's where we want to continue being immediate #1. Nonetheless, Telerik today is very different from what it used to be in 2009 when we started our journey outside of UI controls. Today, we are much closer to our end goal of providing teams with complete solutions that simplify software development, improve collaboration and make all roles involved in the process really productive and aligned. In the worlds of Sitefinity, TeamPulse and Test Studio, our goal is to do the same as we did with UI controls - go from zero to award-winning solutions through innovation, rapid release cycles and user-driven roadmap development, to ultimately create the industry's premier offering for software development teams of all sizes.
In 2011 we started re-aligning our offerings for agile project management & collaboration, testing
and content management to deliver a more complete solution and benefit. The teams grew considerably, the products "strengthened" and got many integration points. They also received many features to make them prime competitors in their space. We are marching towards 2012 with a great sense of fulfillment and we hope our investments will make our customers happy and really productive. It's especially fulfilling to be able to offer more and more solutions to the growing challenges our customers face. As we have always pledged, we will be there for you -regardless of what technology or challenge comes your way. We will fight hard for your trust and try to "deliver more than expected" as that's what you've come to expect from us.
Some other highlights from 2011 that I couldn't leave out of the recap:
I could link each and every one of our accomplishments in 2011 but it will be a long list and it might sound like unnecessary self-praise. I'd rather use the opportunity to thank everyone on the Telerik team for making all these great things happen and for keeping our customers happy.
The best part - 2011 is just a prelude for the very exciting things coming up in 2012 - from brand new products, to major extensions of existing product lines to a ton of improvements that don't make the headlines but matter for you in your daily lives. Many of those great, and unannounced, projects and products will soon see the light.
The business things aside, don't forget to be nice, to be human. Say something nice to the people around you. Be a better and more responsible citizen of the world. Don't forget that you matter. All of us do.
2011 was a great one; I'm looking forward to 2012 and once again wish you and your family all the best. On behalf of the Telerik team, I'd like to wish you a very happy and prosperous 2012.
Best,
Vassil
As Chief Innovation Officer at Progress, Vassil Terziev is responsible for identifying growth strategies and new market opportunities, as well as promoting internal innovation.