Pros
-The Products are world class.Pivotal,Saratoga and many others have solid customer base and customers love the product and are loyal so far, probably the only reason why the company is still running. -The company had a history of solid survival even in the worst recession phases in software history with unnoticeable or no impact at all. -"Was" friendly and stress free work environment once upon a time before the merger. -For the major products the workflow process was well defined. So even though there were problems within departments, the business kept on moving without much trouble due to solid and loyal customer base. -Many dedicated and experienced employees who have solid knowledge of products. Not much attrition until recession and formation of the new APTEAN.
Cons
The formation of APTEAN was the "Hitting of the Iceberg". The company is sinking 'Really Deep' due to inexperienced or rather irrational decisions made by the investor(Vista Equity Partners) who bought it. -Product company is run like a service company replacing even competent critical staff with freshers (or as mentioned during an executive meeting: "get smart people from camera shops and petrol stations ..Huh) and worse everyone has to clear a stupid aptitude test similar to the one done in campus recruitments. As a result I feel the only criteria now to get appointment and stay is low salary and passing the test. There is a high quality degradation that is critically serious due to these type of decisions. -The motto of executive management is to cut cost "at any cost". Employees are fired frequently stating stupid,unreasonable and discriminatory reasons like "stayed in the company too long", "salary too high","redundancy" (though there is not enough staff to keep the business moving), and "performance" (though there is no solid evidence to establish it except personal opinion), In short there is no career growth , stability or even basic consideration for employees in APTEAN. Employees are fired every 3 months stating various reasons. -No specific product roadmap or vision. The new Project management methodology is spontaneous & dangerously risky with no risk management or backup plans.Customers were highly irritated due to the immature migration of important customer portals with new buggy ones without any disaster recovery plans which led to lot of serious problems and the situation was handled in a very immature way which directly points out the incapability of the higher level mgmt. -Internal mgmt. has no voice or power over organizational matters and not even clear on anything. The management model is dictatory with Vista on top. There is no transparency or integrity in anything.