Perforce boss: ‘I’m just the cook’, flips firm to private equity

Perforce Software’s founder has given up the reins of the company - and its privately held status - and sold the firm to group Summit Partners. As well as a lump of cash, the 21-year-old software lifecycle management outfit gets a new CEO, in the shape of industry veteran Janet Dryer. In a blog post, Perforce founder and …

[gstory20]

Congratulations on some real journalism

Most of the "stories" covering this acquisition are mere restatements of the press release, or, worse, simply quote it verbatim. In general I'm very dissatisfied with the state of web"journalism". This article at least does some independent investigation.

Still, there's a back story here that isn't being told. Maybe Christopher Seiwald will reveal more once he's left the company. (And when is that, anyway? He said he's going back to programming--does that mean inside Perforce or elsewhere? Neither he nor Perforce are saying.) If he is still in, I predict it won't last--these things never do.

What prompted this transition after all these years of being a private company? (It appears it's still private--too bad for the employees hoping to cash in their options.)

[gstory20]

some real journalism

Most of the "stories" covering this acquisition are mere restatements of the press release, or, worse, simply quote it verbatim. In general I'm very dissatisfied with the state of web"journalism". This article at least does some independent investigation.

Still, there's a back story here that isn't being told. Maybe Christopher Seiwald will reveal more once he's left the company. (And when is that, anyway? He said he's going back to programming--does that mean inside Perforce or elsewhere? Neither he nor Perforce are saying.) If he is still in, I predict it won't last--these things never do.

What prompted this transition after all these years of being a private company? (It appears it's still private--too bad for the employees hoping to cash in their options.)

[Steve Aubrey]

Re: some real journalism

It's rough when the content providers use the same story and just change the headline.

Oh, why no, I didn't mean - well, nevermind.

[druck]

Staying free?

As we use Perforce successfully at work, I installed a server on my Raspberry Pi at home for use clients on various Linux and Windows systems. Both client and server are free up to 20 users/workspaces, I hope they don't change that, or I'll be moving to something else.

[Kevin McMurtrie]

Re: Staying free?

Perforce Enterprise is cheaper than anyone expects but there's a stigma about it costing money. I'd pay for my own license if given the chance to use it. I'm sure I'll get downvoted for saying this, but Git is absolutely awful for enterprise use. Even the slightest variation from the perfect workflow is walking through a minefield of dangerous, convoluted, and poorly documented features. If employees are spending 1 hour a week on Git, the lost productivity makes it 10 times more expensive than Perforce.