Problem:  Company was being out positioned by competition
Cullinane Corporation eventually became Cullinet Software, Inc. and continued its great success but things were getting more difficult as management changed, competitors became more agile, the company got bigger etc. Eventually, a new database technology appeared on the market to add to the competition. IBM, and others, aggressively promoted this technology and gradually began to put Cullinet on the defensive. Concurrently, a huge competitive advantage of Cullinet Software, namely, that it was the only company to offer a full integration of database, applications, and decision support systems was being used against it by competitors. They were promoting the theme that customers should be concerned about putting all their software eggs in one basket. As a result, customers began buying into what was called open system architecture. Cullinet’s products were considered proprietary. All of the above really has everything to do with positioning. This was the competition’s main message working agianst the company. Something had to be done fast. Again, MainMessage was key, as it was in the past. Using it the company was able to position a new product called Enterprise Generator as the solution to the customers’ key concerns, including open system architecture, by allowing them to generate code for an application in any language or database management system. The success of this program made it possible to return to profitability and, eventually, merge on good terms. For example, the shares of the acquiring firm went up ten times, a true bonanza for those that held onto the acquiring company’s shares.

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