Peregrine Systems

Infobox_Company
company_name = Peregrine Systems, Inc
company_logo =
company_type = Public
company_slogan = Frictionless Business
foundation = 1981
location = San Diego, California, USA
industry = Computer software
revenue = $191.10 million USD (2004)
num_employees = 700
products = ServiceCenter
AssetCenter
Connect.It
Enterprise Discovery
homepage = [http://www.peregrine.com/ www.peregrine.com]

Peregrine Systems, Inc. was an enterprise software company that sold solutions in the enterprise asset management, change management, and ITIL-based IT service management markets. It was founded in 1981 and, by 2000, had achieved market dominating position in these areas. Following an accounting scandal and bankruptcy, Peregrine was acquired by Hewlett Packard in 2005.

History

Peregrine Systems was founded in 1981 in Irvine, California. The original founders and employees were Chris Cole, Gary Story, Ed Beck, Kevin Keyes and Richard Diederich. They starting selling PNMS on a Series One computer while developing an MVS version.

Peregrine conducted business from offices in the Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific. Paradyne acquired the product to implement a "side-stream" management solution to offer the market. The company was developing an MVS version of the software named PNMS II. After the initial success in marketing and selling this product, Peregrine grew to become one of the leaders in the early days of the software industry.

In the mid-80's Peregrine began relationships with venture capital firms and eventually was acquired by John Moores (BMC) in the late 1980's.

Peregrine grew its product line rapidly both organically and via acquisitions. From 1999 to 2001, the rate of acquisitions increased to almost one company a quarter purchased.. This rate of acquisition and the ever evolving company strategy caused confusion both inside the company and within the customer base, damaging the organization's ability to execute a clearly defined and consistent product roadmap.

The publicly announced ROME product convergence roadmap was the most high profile victim.

candal

In 2002, an accounting scandal forced Peregrine into bankruptcy and resulted in criminal indictments for 11 senior managers. None of these eleven managers included the original founding members.

In 2003, Peregrine was charged with "massive fraud"ref|1 by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for allegedly falsifying sales and exaggerating revenue, then covering up the scheme by hiding losses as 'goodwill costs relating to acquisitions'.

Peregrine's leadership was compelled to cover up their schemes, all the while selling off their Peregrine stock, as a result of an audit by BMC who was interested in buying the company. This (along with other scandals) eventually led to the demise of Arthur Andersen who aided those executives involved in the deceptions in the cover up. Much like Enron, the fraud eventually led to many outside investors and Peregrine employees, who invested their earnings in Peregrine's internal stock plan, losing thousands of dollars. The entire amount of shareholder equity lost was over $4 billion dollars. The majority of Peregrine's illegal schemes were devised by the CFO, Matthew Gless and CEO Stephen Gardner. Both have pled guilty to fraud charges and are awaiting sentencing. Common speculation is that federal prosecutors are using Gless's and Gardner's cooperation to build a case against former chairman of the board and San Diego Padres owner John Moores who sold over $800 million of shares during Peregrine's fraudulent period.

Bankruptcy

Peregrine filed for Chapter 11 protection on September 23, 2002 after laying off the majority of its employees ( [http://www.crn.com/it-channel/18819584] ). The company sold the Remedy division of the company to BMC Software for over $300 million dollarsref|2 and used the funds to pay the majority of the company's debt. Peregrine exited Chapter 11 reorganization in August 2003 but the Board of Directors fired the CEO, Gary Greenfield. Retired software executive John Mutch took over and eventually he sold the company for a little more than two times revenue to HP.

ale to HP

Hewlett Packard acquired Peregrine Systems on December 19, 2005.ref|3 The Peregrine products are now sold under the HP Business Technology Optimization (BTO) Software brand and is part of the HP Software Global Business Unit.

Products

*AssetCenter - IT Enterprise asset management software (acquired from Apsylog)
*ServiceCenter - ITIL-enabled IT service management software (developed internally, flagship product)
*Connect-It - Data integration tool (part of Apsylog technology)
*Enterprise Discovery - Discovery and Inventory tool (acquired from fPrint (UK) Ltd and Loran Technologies)
*Knowlix - Knowledge management application (acquired from Knowlix)
*Get-Services - Web based application providing employees with self service access to the Help Desk. Front-end to ServiceCenter.
*Get-Resources - Web based application providing employees with self service access to a request management system. Front-end to ServiceCenter or AssetCenter.
*Get-Answers - Web based knowledge management application developed from Knowlix
*FacilityCenter - CAFM product divested to Tririga during financial collapse (acquired from Span FM).
*FacilityCenter Reserve - Room Booking system divested to Tririga during Financial collapse (acquired from Critical Path).
*Fleet Anywhere - Company vehicle fleet management software divested during 2003 to Maximus (acquired from Prototype).
*Harbinger.Net - EDI VAN, Data Transformation & EDI over Internet provider sold to Golden Gate Capital during financial collapse (acquired from Harbinger)
*Extricity - e-commerce Business Process Management software sold to Golden gate Capital during Financial Collapse (acquired from Extricity)
*Remedy ARS - Forms based application development environment and ITSM applications, sold to BMC during financial collapse (acquired from Remedy Corp).
*TRU - Telecoms based product line, sold to Symphony Services Corp (acquired from Telco Research)
*Xanadu - Appliance based discovery and service management offering targeted at the SME (Small to Medium Enterprise) market, internally developed based upon products from Loran (Network Discovery) and Peregrine (Service Center), product cancelled following poor sales performance.
*Tivoli ServiceDesk - IT Service Management product, end of lifed immediately after acquisition in order to convert customer base to ServiceCenter (acquired from IBM)

Logo

The company logo was first used in March 2001 to illustrate Peregrine Systems expansion into full business to business process management (this change to core strategy followed the acquisitions of the B2B companies Harbinger and Extricity). The logo was accompanied at the launch with the tagline 'Frictionless Business' symbolizing the removal of inefficiency and friction from business processes, the logo was subsequently used as inspiration for the rebrand of the internal serviceDesk at Peregrine under the name 'Frisbee'.

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External links

* [https://h10078.www1.hp.com/cda/hpms/display/main/hpms_content.jsp?zn=bto&cp=1-14%5E2841_4000_100__&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN HP begins integration of Peregrine line (HP news release)]
* [http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/53/53069.html Yahoo! - Peregrine Systems, Inc. Company Profile]
* [http://www.grimesandwarwick.com/recent_updates Peregrine Criminal Trials coverage]