Wishing you great health in 2012. For everything else, there is … Telerik

It gets quiet around the office over the holidays. I like to use this time to reflect on the year behind us, both from the industry perspective, as well as from the Telerik perspective. It's the only 5 days out of the 365 in the year when we are not in a turbulent whirlwind of activity.

From an industry perspective, 2011 was pretty dynamic and we saw some really powerful trends pick up steam:

1. Cloud
   The proliferation of cloud computing. Every solution needs to have a cloud back-end. More and more of our information is starting to live in the cloud.
2. Mobile
   The need for a mobile strategy and mobile experiences. Mobile devices are something that is as mainstream as it gets and it will spur a new age in computing.
3. Consumerization of IT
   Users are not happy with ugly Enterprise apps. They want their consumer experiences to be taken to the world of Enterprise software.
4. Fragmentation of platforms
   Life of developers and IT people in general is getting rapidly more complex. They have to battle ever more platforms (see above), different technologies and…they can't really skip any one of them.

What's common amongst these? It's several things:

• These emerging trends also represent a huge challenge for the people involved in software development 
• They represent a tremendous market opportunity
• We'll be there in helping you solve these. Telerik made many investments in 2011 to address the emerging needs and the difficulties that stem for software developers and their teams

But let's take a quick look back at 2011 and I will get back to 2012 shortly… From our internal perspective, 2011 was a very transformational year at Telerik as we made a number of investments, some visible, some not yet, to be able to provide developers with solutions to all of the 5 industry shifts we are seeing and the associated challenges.

Traditionally, Telerik has been addressing only points #3 and #4, and to some extent #2 (only in the limited world of Windows Phone 7). Many people still see Telerik as a UI controls company. We are victims of our own success - that's where we started, that's what most people use our products for, and that's where we have established ourselves as market leaders. In 2011, we did a lot to continue our momentum in that space and bring the best UI tooling on the market across all Microsoft presentation platforms. With the up and coming introduction of our Windows 8 tooling, Telerik will be in a unique position to deliver the industry's leading UI toolset to Microsoft developers.

With the introduction of Kendo UI in 2011, we made an important step and transcended the Microsoft boundary and the world of Enterprise LOB applications. With Kendo UI, we are ready for the HTML5 wave and the next-generation mobile application development.

That said, in 2011, Telerik made a lot of progress in the tooling area as well - our tools for better development grew and improved. In 2011 we added 2 new products - JustTrace and JustDecompile. JustMock continued its rise to prominence. JustCode got out of its teenage years and today delivers pretty much everything you'll need for development productivity. Our Data Tools also matured considerably and currently Telerik has the most powerful, and probably also the easiest to use, .NET ORM for Enterprise development.

While we don't mind to be seen as a UI controls vendor, it's just now that people are starting to recognize us a premier vendor of productivity tools too. In reality, we've outgrown even that label. UI controls and .NET developer tools is where we started, that's what matters, that's where we want to continue being immediate #1. Nonetheless, Telerik today is very different from what it used to be in 2009 when we started our journey outside of UI controls. Today, we are much closer to our end goal of providing teams with complete solutions that simplify software development, improve collaboration and make all roles involved in the process really productive and aligned. In the worlds of Sitefinity, TeamPulse and Test Studio, our goal is to do the same as we did with UI controls - go from zero to award-winning solutions through innovation, rapid release cycles and user-driven roadmap development, to ultimately create the industry's premier offering for software development teams of all sizes.

In 2011 we started re-aligning our offerings for agile project management & collaboration, testing 
and content management to deliver a more complete solution and benefit. The teams grew considerably, the products "strengthened" and got many integration points. They also received many features to make them prime competitors in their space. We are marching towards 2012 with a great sense of fulfillment and we hope our investments will make our customers happy and really productive. It's especially fulfilling to be able to offer more and more solutions to the growing challenges our customers face. As we have always pledged, we will be there for you -regardless of what technology or challenge comes your way. We will fight hard for your trust and try to "deliver more than expected" as that's what you've come to expect from us.

Some other highlights from 2011 that I couldn't leave out of the recap:

• I must salute our teams for their efforts which brought us 29 industry awards this year. It's also an opportunity for me to say a BIG "Thank You" to every one of you who supported us with your vote. It means a lot to us and it a big motivator to continue to excel.
• For those of you who follow news regarding Telerik, it won't be a surprise when I say Telerik grew tremendously in the past year. To be able to continue delivering more than expected, we continued to build out the team by hiring top talent all over the world. Our team grew considerably across all of our offices (Hey, why not check out one of 28 open positions we have today). I'm especially happy that industry stars such as Chris Sells and Doug Seven have chosen Telerik as the next step in their rich career. Their industry expertise and understanding of the software developer community will help pave Telerik's position as a leading provider of tools you need for development of web, desktop and mobile applications. 
• Lastly, and definitely not least importantly, we are talking to more and more of you on all continents via our community programs which now reach over 400 user groups. In the online world, our community topped 500,000 members. For some other fast facts on Telerik, check out my post Telerik in Numbers.

I could link each and every one of our accomplishments in 2011 but it will be a long list and it might sound like unnecessary self-praise. I'd rather use the opportunity to thank everyone on the Telerik team for making all these great things happen and for keeping our customers happy.

The best part - 2011 is just a prelude for the very exciting things coming up in 2012 - from brand new products, to major extensions of existing product lines to a ton of improvements that don't make the headlines but matter for you in your daily lives. Many of those great, and unannounced, projects and products will soon see the light.

The business things aside, don't forget to be nice, to be human. Say something nice to the people around you. Be a better and more responsible citizen of the world. Don't forget that you matter. All of us do.

2011 was a great one; I'm looking forward to 2012 and once again wish you and your family all the best. On behalf of the Telerik team, I'd like to wish you a very happy and prosperous 2012.

Best,
Vassil