HFS Highlight: $3 billion Boomi sets new customer records as speculation mounts about Dell being ready to put up the ‘for sale’ signs

Boomi – the leading integration Platform-as-a-Service (IPaaS) provider is setting new customer records amid rumors the business may be sold off by owner Dell.

In April it made announcements on ‘unprecedented’ customer growth, Boomi’s new availability in the AWS Marketplace, and how HESTA Super Fund has used the Boomi AtomSphere platform to launch its member portal at blistering pace.

The attention-grabbing comes just as Dell Technologies’ CEO Michael Dell, is believed to be considering shaving more off his business. Earlier in April Dell announced its intention to spin off its 81% stake in VMWare, the cloud and virtualization company. Given VMware’s $68bn valuation, Boomi’s $3bn valuation may seem small fry.

VMware deal points the way to Dell cleaning up its balance sheet

But with Michael Dell himself staying on as chairman, and Dell shareholder’s receiving WMware shares, the evidence suggests Dell isn’t going far and remains as committed as ever to its journey to the cloud. VMware will continue to work together with Dell and share sales and financial teams. The deal is more about reducing the perceived complexity of the relationship between WMware and Dell, which saw VMware saddled with the kind of dual-class share structure the market has taken a dislike to.

Now Dell may be tempted to either try a similar simplification with Boomi – which it acquired in 2010 – or go for a direct sale. Boomi is currently a Dell business unit led by CEO Chris McNabb.

Boomi benefits from global prioritization of the cloud

Boomi’s cloud-based integration platform has done well during the pandemic, benefiting from the prioritization of cloud by leaders across the globe (exhibit 1) as we live with the emerging reality of ‘work-from-anywhere’. There will likely be a queue of suitors if the ‘for sale’ sign does go up.

Exhibit 1: The work-from-anywhere economy means leaders must prioritize the cloud

Source: HFS Research, March 2021, supported by BluePrism. Sample 400 executives from global 2000 enterprises.

New milestones met – with 15,000 customers in 75 countries

This month Boomi hit a new milestone with 15,000 customers across 75 countries. It is reporting customer renewal rates at 95 percent.

CEO Chris McNabb, said: “Digital transformation has become table stakes for survival and data has become most organizations most valuable asset. Data… is the ultimate source of competitive differentiation… a driver of new services that enable businesses to innovate.”

Boomi and rivals play critical role in the OneOffice Emerging Tech Platform

Boomi – and its competitors in integration / iPaaS (see exhibit 2) – have a crucial role to play in The OneOffice Emerging Tech Platform – HFS’ next-stage vision for how enterprises effectively embrace emerging tech: through native automation, people and process augmentation, and data-driven anticipatory insights. This is the mindset and underlying tech that will power enterprises to the OneOffice, our view of what digital transformation looks like when it is put into action.

Exhibit 2: The HFS OneOffice Emerging Tech Platform

Source: HFS Research 2021. Examples are representative

Partnerships with AWS, Snowflake, and SAP extend Boomi’s reach

Boomi also recently formed partnerships and alliances with AWS, Snowflake, and SAP.

From this month, for example, customers buying the Boomi AtomSphere Platform in AWS Marketplace can use the Boomi Atom runtime engine on AWS Quick Start. This allows customers to integrate external data sources with AWS services. The Atom Quick Start cuts time to deploy a Boomi Atom in an AWS environment, to a few click-through steps they claim can be completed in 30 minutes.

Significant customer wins have included Moderna in pharmaceutical, HealthBridge Financial in financial services, and Oshkosh Corporation in manufacturing.

Clients build out a cloud-based call center in a month

And at Super Fund HESTA, customers have been generous with praise. Sheena Peeters, General Manager Technology at HESTA, says they used the Boomi iPaaS to build their member portal.

“The ability to easily integrate 150 processes and connect almost 30 corporate systems in a hub-and-spoke architecture with a low-code design empowered us to design, develop, and deliver our own online portal. More recently, we also successfully built a cloud-based call center in under a month, integrating with its CRM, online portal, and other digital channels so frontline staff have real-time data at their fingertips to give members personalized services in their time of need.

“Building our integration layer with the Boomi platform allowed us to quickly adapt… to deliver to evolving member expectations as we go,” said Peeters. “It has also given us the ability to constantly iterate and release new functionality very quickly because it’s so easy to use.”

Boomi has also provided free services to 2000 governments, schools, non-profits, and hospitals in its Boomi for Good initiative.

The Bottom Line: iPAAS meets the global demand for rapid response to change

Boomi’s iPAAS offering meets the global demand for rapid and flexible deployment in the cloud, allowing companies to keep pace with shifting customer needs. Their widening partner eco-system is fuelling a fast-expanding customer base, and one which appears to be loyal. Demand will only increase as more companies recognize the cloud as their data-fed enabler of growth, making Boomi a hot acquisition target if those for sale signs do go up.