Have anyone considered the possibility that IA could be acquired by a big company to be torn apart?
We’re privately owned, so nobody can just swoop in and acquire us against the owner’s will.
I think Steve has publicly declared his intentions to stay private every year or so at ICC, but I’d have to imagine there’s a pile of money big enough to change anybody’s mind… 
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Who knows...
I feel like every time Ignition presents, customers look down on classic brands.
Hope it doesn't happen or else it will be an end of the ecosystem! It will become another closed system like any other MNC brands!
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I agree.
Let’s see what all the classic-closed brands will do. Seeing all their sales go to Ignition, they won’t stay silent for long.
I would like to think it would cause them to step up their game. Many of the big names have stagnated in my opinion and rely on having an existing customer base that just doesn’t want to change.
Agreed. But let’s me honest, they won’t lift their game. They might try, but their products are so bad that they can’t be saved 
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I guess many large companies take over smaller ones to kill the product like adobe did to macromedia, Oracle did to sun, etc by pricing the product exorbitantly high! I wonder what the valuation of IA would be!
The biggest issue I see is that they try to make a better product but at the same time they try to integrate it into their old technology. So it's not about one product but all their package.
Going up and up. People fall in love with Ignition in just one presentation. I've seen it a few times already.
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I guess many large companies take over smaller ones to kill the product like adobe did to macromedia, Oracle did to sun, etc by pricing the product exorbitantly high!
Embrace, Extend, Exterminate is the standard operating procedure now unfortunately. Hopefully nothing like that comes to Ignition though. One of the few softwares I work with that makes my life easier not harder lol.
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always possible… I know when Kepware sold to PTC it was a big surprise. Kepware sold for 100-118 million. At time of sale Kepware was doing 20 million in revenue.
In a quick google search I could see that IA is making 21 million in revenue.
It’s a good time for someone to pay 5 or 6 times their price before it’s to late 
It's more than just making a better product. It's things like transitioning from waterfall model to an agile model of software development. Which also impacts how they handle customer service. I've posted bugs on here and at times had the solution and a release fix within an hour (with the fix basically rolled into the next nightly release)
The cultural aspects of a company are probably more important than the technological aspects, and changing culture is way harder than building a product, and nigh impossible if no-one "gets" the vision.
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It seems that private company sales often happen when the founder is ready to retire (sometimes, a bucket of money accelerates that timeline). I hope the great company that Steve Hechtman has built will keep the culture of removing obstacles for developers and continue to provide the best product at the best price (there is no better business model).
There are a lot of good people at IA (@Travis.Cox, @Colby.Clegg, @Carl.Gould, @Kevin.McClusky, @Don.Pierson to name a few) that could take the helm and stay on course.
Outsiders change companies and products (usually for the worse) by imposing their brand and culture on top of them.
I would much rather see IA acquire their competitors than the other way around.
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Good points @martinel3746
I don't know about them yet.
I wonder what they can buy... Some hardware company? another software company?
Oh, I've only been hearing about this "possibility" for the last... I don't know, 20 years? Ok, maybe not that much, since in the beginning, everyone was too busy just saying we wouldn't be around long (and of course for the very first few years, nobody really knew about us!)
Maybe. We used to worry about this a lot, but frankly, now it seems like we're somewhat past it. Who knows. Their sales people do like to make stuff up, that we're about to sell out, that we're about to switch to tag based licensing (I just heard this last week!), etc etc... but ultimately, I can say that our track record speaks for itself, and there are no changes in sight.
We don't talk about numbers publicly, and we don't focus on valuation. It's a very long game approach that we take, which I admit, is not very common in the software world, though I think it's very important in the industrial sector.
At any rate, thanks for all the compliments and enthusiasm, and I'm glad you think so highly of us! 
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I don't recall where i saw it, but there's a document out there from a competitor that's essentially a propaganda strategy on how to make ignition look bad. Pretty funny stuff. Anyone whose experienced both sides would never fall for it.
I really like the one from GE about how Java is unsuitable as a base for SCADA/HMI software. I mean, why would you want to script in Jython when you can use VBA? sarcasm
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I agree, I love VBA, such a nice and efficient-to-write language and super trendy.
On an unrelated note, where's that traintrack gotten to that I can tie myself to?
Was that written by Putin on how to get the rest of the world to like you? (what a 
guy)
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My bid is 120 million rubles, in cash 