MadCap Software Adds Former NetIQ Executive to Lead Initiative for Enterprise-wide Adoption of MadCap Products
Simon Blackburn Brings 20 Years of Enterprise Sales and Consulting Experience at Enviance, NetIQ, Oracle, and Andersen Consulting
La Jolla, CA, USA – March 30, 2009 – MadCap Software, the leader in multi-channel content authoring and a showcase company for Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) Visual Studio 2005 and Microsoft XPS, today announced that Simon Blackburn will lead MadCap’s enterprise sales strategy and execution.
Mr. Blackburn will contribute to MadCap’s next stage of growth by spearheading enterprise-level adoption of MadCap’s best-in-class XML-based documentation family, which provides the industry’s most integrated and complete content creation and workflow solution. Since launching its flagship product Flare three years ago, MadCap has gained thousands of customers, including many Fortune 500 companies. Not only are these customers adding to the ranks of users within their organizations, they also are expanding their use of MadCap products for authoring and casual contribution; multi-channel publishing of high-end print, online and multimedia content; and content analysis, localization, and collaboration. The much anticipated 2009 launch of MadCap Team Server for centralized content management will further accelerate company-wide use of MadCap and the need for dedicated enterprise sales resources to address this growing customer base.
“Simon not only has a strong track record of success in enterprise sales and consulting, he also shares MadCap’s commitment to delivering the ultimate customer experience,” said Anthony Olivier, MadCap co-founder and CEO. “We are excited to work with Simon, and he will play a strategic role in the next stage of our growth as we expand on our MadCap next-generation content workflow family to include collaboration across the enterprise.”
Mr. Blackburn brings two decades of software and consulting sales experience to MadCap, most recently as founder of Harvest 20/20 to help companies develop and execute strategies for driving new sources of revenue. Prior to Harvest 20/20, he served as vice president of sales at Enviance, a provider of information and document management-based software for automating and improving the management of environmental, health and safety (EHS) compliance activities. Before Enviance, Mr. Blackburn was regional vice president, sales for NetIQ, a provider of enterprise management software to Fortune 500 companies. Prior to NetIQ, Simon was responsible for sales at Oracle's insurance practice in the UK; he started his career as a manager at Andersen Consulting.
“MadCap is leading some of the most innovative developments in content workflow solutions today, and its products are ideally suited for the many enterprise content challenges companies face,” said Simon Blackburn. “I am excited to join the highly talented and customer-focused MadCap team in extending use of MadCap’s state-of-the-art software to this enterprise community.”
Growing Industry Recognition for MadCap Software
Just three years after its first product launch, MadCap is widely recognized as a leading solution provider for documentation professionals. Most recently the 2009 WritersUA User Assistance Tools Survey reported in February 2009 that, not only is MadCap Flare quickly becoming the leading tool of choice among software documentation professionals with 36 percent of respondents, but is also the only product gaining market share and showing a 44 percent increase over the prior year. In addition, Flare is the number three product in terms of product satisfaction, earning strong approval from 90 percent of users. Similarly, in October 2008, Flare was identified as the authoring application of choice by 39 percent of respondents in The Help Authoring Tools & Techniques (HATT) survey sponsored by HAT-Matrix.com and by 46 percent of respondents to the survey conducted by the I’d Rather Be Writing blog. MadCap’s rapid customer adoption, combined software innovation and strong financial performance, also led to MadCap winning the Red Herring 100 Global Company 2008 Award.
About MadCap Software
MadCap Software is a trusted resource for more than 20,000 companies around the globe for single-source, multi-channel authoring and publishing solutions designed to streamline the process of developing and delivering training content, learning and development programs, technical documentation, online Help, knowledge bases, and more. From authoring, publishing and translation, to cloud-based project and content management, to contribution and review in the cloud, you can streamline content delivery and manage the entire content development lifecycle with MadCap Software. MadCap Software’s services include product training, consulting services, translation and localization, and an advanced developer certification program. Headquartered in San Diego, California, with offices in Austin, TX, MadCap Software is home to some of the most experienced software architects and product experts in the content development industry.
