If you just want the status quo—everything is working great—and all you want to do is cut costs, we're the people who can deliver that. You talk to Workday [an on-demand ERP provider, started by PeopleSoft founder Dave Duffield], and Workday [execs] say, "All that stuff is antiquated and should be thrown out." Well, that's great, but [a company] just spent a $100 million putting it in. They're still writing it off.

CIO: So It seems like you do consider companies like Workday and other SaaS and on-demand providers your competitors?

Ravin: Sure, and I think they do too. Interestingly, we're partnered with Workday on several projects with customers. We represent taking care of the legacy systems for several years while some of the customers are preparing to implement Workday.

The SaaS thing has its place and, yes, there are many options. But when we walk into a company, all we're talking about is how much money we're going to take off the budget. Nobody's actually has to go get budget approval. So it's a whole different process than if you're walking in with Workday, where you have to explain to everybody why the system you are using is no longer as good as what you are going to get. And there's the entire conversion process—the cost of the process, the cost of the software, the risk of the changeover—all those things have to come together. And then you've got to prove it's really in the best interest of the company and this is the right time to do it.

If you look at the number of PeopleSoft customers that have made the conversion to Workday you'll see that it's one thing to love Dave Duffield, and I love him dearly, but it's another thing to say, "Dave you just sold me a system for 100 million bucks four years ago, and I love you, but I can't throw it out and replace it just because you're on to a new project." It just doesn't work that way. [Editor's note: See "Can Two Legacy ERP Guys Get IT Executives to Buy into On-Demand Applications?" for an interview with Duffield and his Workday cofounder.]

CIO: From a big picture view, do you think there is a fundamental change happening now in how companies purchase, integrate, maintain and support enterprise software?

Ravin: I think we are at a big change. What you're seeing now is the evolution of where customers are taking control of software as part of their asset pool and making decisions about how long they're going to run it, where they're going to run it, and they're doing it on their company time scale versus when the software vendor has, for years, attempted to dictate.