Kerpan Ends Run as Borland CTO

Borland Software Corp.s chief technology officer has called it quits after five years with the company.

Patrick Kerpan, Borlands CTO since early last year, said last week he is leaving the software ALM (application lifecycle management) tools maker to take "time to look into a few other things."

According to Kerpan, those other things could include starting a new venture or getting involved at the ground-floor level of a startup. "I like that entrepreneurial feel," he said. "You wont see me popping up week after next at the competition."

Kerpan moved into his role as CTO last year when then-CTO Blake Stone left Borland to join Microsoft Corp. But Kerpan said Microsoft or IBM is the last place he is likely to work at.

"If I want to work for the best ALM company, Im at it," he said.

Kerpan joined Borland, in Cupertino, Calif., in 2000 when Borland acquired the company he founded, Bedouin Inc. Borland built its Borland Developer Services Platform group around Bedouin technology.

"We were doing project portfolio management, and that became the beginnings of the ALM business at Borland," Kerpan said. "The [Starbase Corp.] acquisition came after that, and we were on our way."

Borland has not named a successor for Kerpan, although he informed the company of his plans a few months ago, and Borland has been working on a transition from having Kerpan in the role of CTO to having an office that monitors the companys technology vision by committee, said company officials.

One of Kerpans first tasks at Borland was to help consolidate the seven individual chief scientists at the company into one cohesive unit. "Ive been a lens through which we can focus other peoples great ideas," Kerpan said.

Kerpan said Borland is set to continue to deliver on its SDO (Software Delivery Optimization) strategy and to continue to build tools that make it easier for developers to build, deploy and maintain applications.

Kerpan was instrumental in leading Borland into greater participation in the Eclipse Foundation and to base future versions of its Java IDE (integrated development environment) on the Eclipse platform.

Asked what he considered to be his legacy at Borland, Kerpan pointed to the companys ALM strategy. For most of its life, Borland "helped developers write better software faster, and Im one of the people who said we can help development teams write better software faster," he said.