BladeLogic announces Q1 results

BladeLogic announced decent quarterly results Thursday of $21.5M revenue spanning 73 customers with a nice growth mix of 32% coming from deals outside the US.  They also noted increased operational costs resulting in a negative balance sheet.  I would expect some of this is coming from increases competition beyond Opsware (now HP) as the market continues to heat up and draw attention from the influx of virtualization management vendors and vendors that historically were more security focused are now diverting more attention to DCA based on recent valuations (e.g., Blade’s IPO and HP acquisition of Opsware).

A crossroad may be upon us where we may finally see a move by BladeLogic to allow itself to be purchased (valuation is now down under $500M vs. expected annual revenues of $90M) or they will decide to increase their breadth and go it alone (aka acquire someone) for now.  At this point with all the competitive pressure I would expect to see one of these two things happen in the next 6 months.  Performing a smart acquisition based on what their current customers are asking for could also provide a nice infusion of energy and buzz that could drive them to break through the $100M revenue ceiling this fiscal year.

As always, this is simply my opinion and perspective based on public information and customer trends.  If you don’t agree, go ahead and let me know below in the comments, if you do then please share your insights as well.