ARCAD Opens New Office in Singapore

July 22, 2008 Alex Woodie

ARCAD Software, aka “The Kilt People,” last week announced the opening of a new office in Singapore to serve the growing demand for its software in the Asia Pacific region. The new office is the latest indication of how the French company, which sells application lifecycle management tools (ALM), has been moving to expand the company and its sales.

ARCAD develops a collection of ALM tools and assorted programmer utilities aimed at making life easier for System i application developers. Recently, the company has moved aggressively to fill the void for change management tools left when one of that market’s dominant players, SoftLanding Systems, was bought by Unicom Group and put into maintenance mode. ARCAD responded by opening a new office in SoftLanding’s old town, Peterborough, New Hampshire.

The opening of the new ARCAD office in Singapore this month isn’t so much about moving to rapidly fill a void as it is building the foundation for long-term growth in the area. With many of the nations in the Asia Pacific region expanding economically and the higher rates of IT growth there, it made sense for ARCAD to establish a presence, which is what it has done.

“Formalizing a local presence is a strategic decision to capitalize on emerging opportunities across the region,” says Philippe Magne, CEO and chairman of ARCAD, which is based in the foothills of the French Alps in a city called Annecy. “As a regional hub for Asia, Singapore is the ideal choice for the location of our Asia-Pacific headquarters.”

ARCAD’s tools are a good fit for the types of companies that are moving into the region, Magne says. “In terms of growth, we are continually reviewing this region and other areas in which multi-national enterprises require multi-platform application management capabilities,” he says. “For these companies, our integrated, repository-based offering has a strong advantage.”

What has yet to be decided is whether the dress code in Singapore will allow for “Casual Kilt Fridays” at the new office. ARCAD employees, including Magne, drew rave reviews for their tactical application of the native Scottish attire at the COMMON conference in Nashville, Tennessee, last March.