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Company Perspectives:
Hyperion Solutions Corporation is the global leader in Business Perfo rmance Management software. With Hyperion you can collect, organize a nd analyze data--then distribute it throughout your enterprise using a rich, unified workspace that makes business performance management easier and more powerful than ever before. Hyperion solutions can hel p you drive performance improvements by better aligning goals with me trics, increasing your operational efficiency and becoming more comfo rtable with the integrity of your numbers.
Headquartered in Santa Clara, California, Hyperion Solutions Corporat ion is a leading developer of business performance management softwar e, which helps businesses to gather, organize, and analyze business d ata; determine corporate performance; and then improve that performan ce through the use of modeling and planning. According to the company , it is the only industry player to offer business intelligence and f inancial management applications in one system. Through a network of approximately 600 partners, Hyperion serves a base of some 10,000 cus tomers in 45 countries worldwide. These include the likes of Allstate Insurance, Braun, Coca-Cola, FIAT, H & R Block, Hyatt, Novartis, Staples, Toyota Motor Sales USA, and Yale University.
Establishment and Growth: The 1980s
Hyperion Solution Corporation's roots stretch back to 1981, when Marc o Arese and Bob Thompson established International Management Reporti ng Services Inc. (IMRS). During its early years, the company was base d at 1033 Washington Boulevard in Stamford, Connecticut. According to Hyperion, the release of IMRS's flagship product, Micro Control, "de fined a new market by delivering multinational financial reporting on personal computers."
A native of Milan, Italy, Arese made a sizable start-up investment in Hyperion and played a central role in developing the company's inter national operations. Prior to starting Hyperion, Arese earned an M.B. A. from the University of California at Berkeley and worked for Citib ank in Milan and London, where he designed financial reporting softwa re. He then established a software company called Fienco SpA, which f ocused on PC-based treasury management systems.
Cofounder Thomson served as Hyperion's president and CEO, ultimately retiring from the company's board in August 1998. Before his role at Hyperion, Thomson worked in the management and technical ranks for Ci ticorp, Citibank, Rank Xerox, and Dolby System Labs. After leaving Hy perion, he relocated to Bermuda and became a "business angel" on the U.S. East Coast and in Scotland.
In addition to Micro Control, IMRS's early products included a data c ollection application called FinalForm, which companies used to autom ate and consolidate the collection of data from remote locations. Wit h a license price of $40,000, FinalForm helped companies to strea mline their financial operations and improve the efficiency of invent ory management, sales reporting, and tax recording and preparation.
IMRS ended the 1980s by acquiring New York-based Corporate Class Soft ware Inc., a subsidiary of Bridgewater, New Jersey-based Hoechst Cela nese that produced a complementary line of management reporting softw are called FASTAR (Financial Application Solution to Analysis and Rep orting). At the time of the acquisition, Micro Control and FASTAR wer e the leading software applications in their category, used by the li kes of Unilever USA, Warner Communications Inc., and McDonald's Corpo ration. Each application cost about $75,000. The acquisition push ed IMRS's sales to $20 million and saw the consolidation of devel opment, sales, and support. At this time James Perakis served as IMRS 's president and the company had about 400 corporate customers and so me 5,000 installations.
In 1989 IMRS also released a new Windows-based financial reporting ap plication called OnTrack, which was instrumental in that it allowed n ovice users to generate corporate and financial reports by using a mo use and clicking on hypertext links. Compatible with Micro Control, t he new program was priced at $35,000. IMRS ended its 1989 fiscal year with sales of $12 million.
Market Leader: The 1990s
By the early 1990s IMRS was growing at a healthy clip. In fact, the c ompany had been recognized for four consecutive years as one of the f astest growing private companies in the United States by Inc. magazine. After subleasing an additional 9,200 square feet at its 160 0 Summer Street Stamford location in 1990, the company moved forward with a major relocation, subleasing 73,558 square feet of space in St amford's Long Ridge Office Park. The new facility, located at 777 Lon g Ridge Road, allowed IMRS to consolidate its headquarters with the c ompany's Washington Boulevard location, which was being used for trai ning. By this time, the company had grown to include a staff of 280 e mployees.
IMRS continued its expansion efforts by opening three new regional of fices in 1991. Devoted to sales and support, the new sites included a Canadian office in Calgary, as well as locations in St. Louis and Ph iladelphia. With a total of 15 offices worldwide, including 11 in the United States, the company's revenues reached $34 million in 199 1, up from $24 million in 1990. IMRS ended the year by going publ ic. The company completed its initial public offering on October 25, raising approximately $40 million that it planned to use for debt reduction and future expansion.
By this time IMRS had added an application called Treasury Control to its product lineup and had named its flagship software, which held 8 5 percent of the financial-consolidation software market, Hyperion. W ith the launch of its Hyperion Financials line, IMRS set its sites on the client-server financial reporting software market in early 1995. Unlike its main market, the client-server sector was home to a numbe r of established competitors, including Lawson Software, Platinum Sof tware, and PeopleSoff. At this time, IMRS changed its name to Hyperio n Software Corporation.
In 1998 Hyperion was acquired by Arbor Software Corporation. The newl y merged firms adopted the name Hyperion Solutions Corporation. Arbor was established in 1991 by Bob Earle and Jim Dorian, two pioneers in the field of business analysis software. Prior to the acquisition, t he company had unveiled its flagship online analytical processing (OL AP) software in 1992, generating sales of $1.1 million. By 1995 A rbor had gone public and was listed on the NASDAQ. In 1997 Arbor made its first acquisition when it purchased Orlando, Florida-based Appso urce, which had developed an OLAP presentation and viewer tool.
With an estimated value of $780 million to $1.3 billion, the merger resulted in the company relocating its headquarters to Sunnyva le, California. Jim Perakis was named chairman of the new enterprise, and Arbor Chairman and CEO John Dillon was named CEO. Stock ownershi p was divided so that Arbor investors held a 40 percent stake in the company and Hyperion shareholders held a 60 percent share.
Following the merger, Hyperion Solutions had about 1,800 employees in 26 countries who served a customer base of some 4,000 organizations in 40 countries. Its clients, which included Adobe Systems, Allergan, and Kraft Foods, hailed from a variety of industries, including cons umer goods and services, healthcare, information technology, educatio n, insurance, telecommunications, government, banking, transportation , and retail.
Hyperion proceeded to integrate its products and sales forces followi ng the merger. As of late 1998 the company offered four main products to its customers. These included a presentation and reporting tools set called Hyperion Tools; an OLAP server called Essbase; the Hyperio n Enterprise tool for financial consolidation and reporting; and a bu dgeting analytic program called Hyperion Pillar.
In early 1999 the research firm International Data Corp. issued a rep ort citing Hyperion as the market leader in analytic applications, wi th a share of 18 percent. The report also placed Hyperion at the head of the market for financial-related analytic applications, with a sh are of 36 percent. Around this time Hyperion spun off its decision su pport arm as Appsource Corp., the name it had operated under before A rbor purchased the company in December 1997.
While the Hyperion-Arbor merger created the industry's largest busine ss intelligence software enterprise, wide-ranging integration issues followed. This especially was the case with the company's sales force , in that teams that once competed against one another (and downplaye d the other side's products) were now in a position to promote the of ferings of both companies.
By mid-1999 Hyperion had experienced a sequential drop in quarterly r evenue, as well as a decline in its stock price. A number of executiv es resigned, and Hyperion fired CEO John Dillon and Vice-President of Worldwide Sales William Binch, citing "problems with their 'expectat ion management and forecasting,'" according to the May 4, 1999, issue of Computergram International.
In its May 10, 1999 issue, Computergram International noted th at "the company's inability to successfully execute a post-merger str ategy appears to have caused a level of dissension within virtually e very aspect of the organization. The conservative Hyperion failed, an d is still failing, to gel with the more dynamic and performance-orie nted Arbor. And one year on since the deal was first announced the co mbined Hyperion Solutions looks in only slightly better shape than wh en the operation was being run as two separate organizations."
After Dillon was fired, CFO Steve Imbler was named interim CEO. He ul timately was replaced by Jeffrey R. Rodek, who assumed the role of bo th chairman and CEO. Prior to joining Hyperion, Rodek was president a nd worldwide chief operating officer of Ingram Micro Inc., a Hyperion board member, and also a 16-year executive with Federal Express.
Moving past its operational troubles, in 1999 Hyperion acquired Sapli ng Corporation, a developer of enterprise performance management soft ware, for $15.5 million. The acquisition helped Hyperion to stave off competition from SAP AG and Oracle Corporation. Hyperion renamed Sapling's main products and added Hyperion Performance Scorecard and Hyperion Business Modeling to its product lineup. Hyperion ended the 1990s with fiscal year 1999 sales of $424.9 million. In addition , for the second consecutive year Deloitte & Touche and Joint Ven ture: Silicon Valley Network named the company to the 1999 Silicon Va lley Technology "Fast 50" for being one of the valley's fastest growi ng technology firms.
Web/Enterprise Focus: The 2000s
Hyperion began the new millennium by introducing Hyperion Planning an d Hyperion Financial Management, two Web-based packaged financial app lications. In 2000 the company also partnered with WebTrends Corporat ion to provide its customers with integrated e-business analysis solu tions. This was accomplished by integrating Hyperion business analysi s applications with WebTrends' Commerce Trends solution.
Hyperion also joined the XBRL Project Committee, a coalition of some 30 software, government, and accounting firms that was formed to prom ote extensible Business Reporting Language as a free, open standard f or financial reporting. According to an April 6, 2000, Business Wi re release, XBRL sought "to help organizations easily distribute financial information in any format, including HTML documents for the Web, printed financial statements, EDGAR filing documents for the Se curities and Exchange Commission (SEC), or other specialized reportin g formats such as credit reports or loan documents." These developmen ts came at a time when users were demanding sophisticated Web-based t ools.
In addition to competition from industry heavyweights like Microsoft, Hyperion was challenged by stagnant revenues and declining economic conditions. In response, the company tightened its belt to weather th e storm. This resulted in a 15 percent workforce reduction (400 jobs) , a hiring freeze, travel restrictions, and cutbacks in capital spend ing. In addition, Hyperion indicated that it would focus its workforc e around its profitable products. One analyst noted that the company had created confusion in the marketplace--and within its own sales fo rce--by introducing too many products, and that Hyperion would do wel l to eliminate resource-draining, underperforming products.
Hyperion ended its 2001 fiscal year with sales of $528 million, c ompared with $492 million in 2000. It reported a net loss of $ ;31.1 million, however, compared with net income of $30.6 million in fiscal 2000. On a positive note, the company returned to profitab ility during the fourth quarter, reporting net income of $1.8 mil lion despite a tough economic climate.
Following similar developments by competitors like SAP AG, Oracle Cor poration, and PeopleSoft Inc., in September 2001 Hyperion announced t hat it would make its business intelligence and data warehousing prod ucts available enterprise-wide by 2004. This move would give executiv es a broader top-level view and make it easier for departments and bu siness units to share information. In October, Godfrey Sullivan was n amed as Hyperion's president and COO; Jeffrey Rodek remained chairman and CEO. Prior to joining Hyperion, Sullivan served as CEO of market ing software developer Promptu Corporation.
In 2002 Hyperion saw its revenues fall to $492 million. The compa ny was profitable for the year, however, with net income of $15.7 million. Hyperion received a license revenue boost during the fourth quarter when it gained 235 new customers who contributed 44 percent of license revenue. Among the new customers were Citigroup, Motorola, and Northrop Grumman. Attributing to Hyperion's success was the intr oduction of new products, including its Hyperion Business Performance Management Suite.
Heading into 2003, Hyperion was on solid footing. As accounting scand als at companies like Enron ushered in new accountability standards f or the corporate sector, the company stood to benefit by increased sa les of its reporting software. In a January 24, 2003 interview with t he America's Intelligence Wire, CEO Jeffrey Rodek noted a 13 p ercent year-over-year increase in Hyperion's software business and re marked that the company's balance sheet was "the strongest ever."
Hyperion's business performance management line was bolstered signifi cantly with the April 2003 acquisition of Skokie, Illinois-based The Alcar Group, a developer of financial modeling software, followed by the $142 million acquisition of Santa Clara, California-based Bri o Software Inc. By October Hyperion was working to integrate Brio's p roducts into its own lineup, giving Hyperion the ability to offer bus iness intelligence software; Hyperion's Business Intelligence Platfor m was released in 2004.
A number of important developments occurred in 2004. In response to m ore stringent corporate governance standards, the company split the r ole of chairman and CEO. Jeffrey Rodek became executive chairman, and Godfrey Sullivan assumed the role of president and CEO. The company also unveiled Hyperion Essbase 7X, calling it "the most dramatic inno vation in analytics since the company pioneered OLAP technology in 19 92."
In August, Hyperion cut 50 jobs as it moved more software development offshore. According to an August 18, 2004, Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News article, the move was upsetting to workers, some of whom had just completed a questionnaire for Fortune magazine' s "100 Best Companies to Work For" list only days before. Despite str ong financial performance, the company insisted the move was necessar y for it to remain competitive. Hyperion CEO Godfrey Sullivan ended t he year by announcing that the company had set aside $1 million t o offer employees $5,000 toward the purchase of environmentally f riendly cars (those with fuel economy of at least 45 miles per gallon ).
Hyperion started 2005 on a sour note as it was sued by two other comp anies for patent infringement. The first suit was filed by HyperRoll Israel Ltd., claiming that the Hyperion Essbase 7X OLAP server infrin ged on two of its patents. Stamford, Connecticut-based OutlookSoft Co rp. also filed two infringement suits against Hyperion related to pat ents for its Everest application.
In early 2005 Hyperion acquired Razza Solutions Inc., which bolstered its capabilities in the area of business performance management soft ware. The company ended fiscal year 2005 with record revenues of $ ;702.6 million, up 13 percent from $622.2 million in 2004. Hyperi on's net income spiked 52 percent, reaching $66.7 million.
Hyperion continued to release new business performance management pro ducts in 2005. The company's Hyperion System 9 offered users one syst em with a business intelligence platform and financial management app lications.
A major highpoint in the company's history also occurred in 2005 when Information Age dubbed Hyperion Essbase as "one of the 10 mos t influential technology innovations of the last 10 years," according to an August 16, 2005, M2 Presswire release. In the publicati on's 10th anniversary issue, Information Age editor Kenny MacI ver remarked: "Hyperion Essbase was the multi-dimensional database th at put online analytical processing on the business intelligence map. It has spurred the creation of scores of rival OLAP products."
Principal Competitors: Business Objects S.A.; Cognos Inc.
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