Brief: Tibco's BT Moment Of Truth

After an impressive growth spurt during 2010 and 2011, Tibco Software hit a wall. It grew past $1 billion in sales, but growth has slowed and stockholders are getting impatient. The solution? Get rid of those pesky stockholders. Vista Equity Partners' pending $4.3 billion deal to take the company private allows Tibco to transform without the pressure of quarterly expectations and constraints of US Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulations. Tibco must accelerate its adoption of cloud computing as its primary delivery model, develop a deeper portfolio of business solutions, and expand its customer base to remain relevant and to reignite high growth. The company's success or failure will tell us much about how enterprise middleware vendors can advance their customers' business technology (BT) agendas.