> As a recently public company Atlassian knows it'll need to grow beyond developers
Why is that? Why does a company that is good at something NEED to expand beyond their area of expertise? Is is just me who sees this as American Capitalism™? Wouldn't it be better to try to make their products excellent and attract the many developers who are not using their suite? Why the always constant push to grow at any cost?
I'm saying this as someone who has been using Atlassian products for a while. They seem to focus on JIRA and Confluence only, and letting all the other products be 2nd or even 3rd class citizens. Why expand if you cannot keep the software that you already own up to date?
Why do anything? Why should Intel care about mobile or Nvidia care about compute? Why should apple care about phones and why should Google care about cars and email? Why should Amazon care about cloud storage? Why should Microsoft care about Linux? Why should BMW care about electric cars? Why should Toyota care about hybrids?
Because you can as and because there are big rewards for doing it right and you're in a good position to that.
"Because you can" is the easiest answer you can give to anything. My comment was written because I feel like people say that Atlassian MUST expand beyond developers. So it doesn't feel like they WANT or they CAN.
Because their shareholders expect the biggest return for their money. This isn't a problem for self-funded companies (they don't have to live beyond their means if they don't need to), but if investors don't see growth they'll sell shares while it's still at its peak. That's business for you.
Yeah, the insatiable need for growth is definitely a function of the way we've structured the investment markets. Public companies depend on shareholders for capital. Shareholders buy your shares because they think you're going to be worth more money some day. Generally, companies become worth more money by increasing sales and developing new, diversified assets and product portfolios.
"If you're not moving forward you're moving backward."
It's true for any company, and even more true for tech companies. They have to continue to grow for many reasons, including keeping their existing products better.
I personally am not a JIRA fan. We used it for a while and it just really didn't work out for us. The entire experience was too cumbersome and unfriendly. However, that has nothing to do with them growing. If anything, they're doing an amazing job growing with a product that isn't fun to use at all.
The set of shareholders who would prefer a company return profits / invest in existing products vs risky investments in non-core-competency areas is certainly not empty. If I wanted to invest in a dogfood company I can- I invest in Atlassian because they make developer tools.
I disagree with this completely. Atlassian is in the business of collaboration tools. They've done that for developers, but it doesn't mean they're only capable of making developer tools.
Also, where's the risk here? Other than the inflated price I don't see any risk. Trello isn't just an idea but rather a real product with a massive team and a ton of users who love it. They've iterated on their platform enough so I imagine many of both the technical and experience aspects are polished enough. What am I missing?
Why is that? Why does a company that is good at something NEED to expand beyond their area of expertise? Is is just me who sees this as American Capitalism™? Wouldn't it be better to try to make their products excellent and attract the many developers who are not using their suite? Why the always constant push to grow at any cost?
I'm saying this as someone who has been using Atlassian products for a while. They seem to focus on JIRA and Confluence only, and letting all the other products be 2nd or even 3rd class citizens. Why expand if you cannot keep the software that you already own up to date?