Talk:BMC Software/Archive 2

Removing sections from page
I am a BMC Software employee.

and no longer work at BMC. I will be continuing the previous effort to clean-up this page by trimming and deleting unnecessary sections. To continue from the previous comments, I believe these sections should be removed completely:
 * Location
 * Directors and staff
 * Partnerships
 * Assets

In each of these instances, as well as most of the History section, I believe there is undue weight added, see: WP:WEIGHT

Additionally, old data in the Infobox from 2012 should be removed.

One concern with the current page is the extreme depth from a decade ago makes the page less accurate now. By shortening the page to just a couple of sections we can reduce the chance of undue weight on a particular timeframe or on what in hindsight is inconsequential...we don't need a complete history of every single thing that ever occurred at BMC.

For reference, analysts typically consider ServiceNow BMC's #1 competitor.

Per WP:COIRESPONSE, "Look for unnecessary detail that may have been added to overwhelm something negative." -- it seems to me that most of the current very long article could fit this description.

Wattssw (talk) 18:31, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Reply 14-SEP-2018

 * 1) ✅ Content which was insufficiently paraphrased from the source material has been removed per WP:CLOSEPARAPHRASE.
 * 2) ✅ Content which was found to be editorial content and not identified as such has been omitted per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV.
 * 3) ✅ Content which was quoted but not given proper attribution for the quoted material (by stating the author's name) was omitted per WP:QUOTE. Much content has been quoted for this article, but in instances where this was done and proper attribution was given, these quotes have been retained (i.e., where an SEC report was quoted and the claim statement includes the sentence "According to an SEC filing, ...").
 * 4) ✅ URL links to references which were no longer working were searched for replacements. For references in which replacements could not be found, these were omitted. Several of these instances did not involve the removal of accompanying text, because the claims covered by the dead URLs ended up being covered by other, still-working URLs.
 * 5) ❌ Content in the infobox which was outdated was not removed because those items were not individually identified by the COI editor.
 * Regards,  spintendo   09:07, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Additional/More Specific Request
In response to the previous reply from Spintendo Specific edit requests:
 * 1) From Infobox, please remove these items which are 6 years out of date, and as BMC is no longer a public company these data points are no longer published: Revenue	Increase US$2.172 billion[1] (2012); Operating income Increase US$543.9 million[1] (2012); Net income Decrease US$401.0 million[1] (2012); Total assets	Increase US$4.864 billion[1] (2012); Total equity	Increase US$1.446 billion[1] (2012); Number of employees 6,900[1] (March 2012)
 * 2) From Location section: Please remove entire section. This section contains trivial information about the company.
 * 3) From Directors and staff section: Please remove entire section. This section contains trivial and outdated information about the company.
 * 4) From Partnerships section: Please remove entire section. This section contains trivial and outdated information about the company.
 * 5) From Assets section: Please remove entire section. This section contains trivial information about the company.

In each of these cases I look to WP:WEIGHT and WP:COIRESPONSE as guidelines suggesting there is too much trivial non-essential content that should be removed for improved balance and to ensure future accuracy. Wattssw (talk) 15:23, 14 September 2018 (UTC)


 * I've removed the financials from the infobox. Removing the other sections you asked for would not create balance, which by definition, is a balance of all different types of information. In order to balance these sections, they should be re-written. As I said earlier, I've already removed everything that was outright removable. Anything else that is remaining and is properly sourced will require more creative thinking and creative writing to bring a balance between it and the rest of the article's content. spintendo   18:02, 14 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Thank you Spintendo for working with me on this. Regarding Assets section, the statement "BMC owns real estate property but it's mostly in four office buildings totaling 1,515,000 square feet (140,700 m2) in Houston, Texas; sales and development offices around the world are leased.[28]" is backed up by only a single source from 2002. This is 16 years ago, and the company has since moved its HQ. This information is not accurate. Would you consider deleting this specific section? Wattssw (talk) 18:49, 14 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Hi Spintendo would you consider removing the Assets section due to reasons listed above? I don't mean to badger you, just trying to understand why these sections full of very old, very outdated content must remain on this page. FYI and  as previous editors working on this page, any thoughts on removing the Assets section - and frankly some of the others as well ?       Regarding BMC's extensive history section, I look to the Talk page for ServiceNow for guidance, we should be following similar WP:PROMO practice and remove this lengthy history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:ServiceNow#WP_page_as_a_proxy_for_company_website Wattssw (talk) 14:00, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Request to Remove "Assets" section
In Assets section, the statement "BMC owns real estate property but it's mostly in four office buildings totaling 1,515,000 square feet (140,700 m2) in Houston, Texas; sales and development offices around the world are leased.[28]" is backed up by only a single source from 2002. This is 16 years ago, and the company has since moved its HQ. This information is not accurate and as real estate is not a primary function of BMC, this section should be removed as per guidance from WP:WEIGHT and WP:COIRESPONSE Wattssw (talk) 16:36, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Reply 26-SEP-2018

 * 1) ✅ The paragraph's heading and contents have been altered to reflect the time period that the 10K refers to.
 * 2) FYI: Editor signature's are not to be copied and pasted into posts made by yourself or other editors. When referring to other editors by name, simply type the unformatted name. Thank you !   Spintendo   18:56, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Edit request
Due to https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/kkr-completes-acquisition-of-bmc-software-300723077.html, a few updates should be made for the page to be accurate.

Suggested edits: Wattssw (talk) 16:53, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
 * 1) Update to this more concise first paragraph: BMC Software, Inc. (“BMC”) is a technology company headquartered in Houston, Texas with offices worldwide. BMC offers comprehensive IT software and services, including mainframe management, IT service management, IT operations management, application development, and cloud computing management.
 * 2) Edit second paragraph to be accurate to new KKR acquisition: In 2013, BMC transitioned from a public company to a private company. Investors included Bain Capital, Golden Gate Capital, Insight Venture Partners, GIC Private Limited's GIC Special Investments Pte Ltd, and Elliott Management Corporation. In 2018, KKR, a leading global investment firm, acquired BMC.
 * 3) In "Acquisition and privatization by private equity firms" section, please add this sentence as a new paragraph: Global investment firm KKR acquired BMC Software in 2018.

Reply 19-OCT-2018
Your edit request could not be reviewed because it is unclear which references are connected to which claim statements in the text of your proposal. When proposing edit requests, it is important to highlight in the text which specific sources are doing the referencing for each claim. The point of an inline citation is to allow the reviewer and readers to check that the material is sourced; that point is lost if the citation's note number is not clearly placed. Note the example below:



The sun is pretty big, but the moon is not so big. The sun is also quite hot.

References 1. Sjöblad, Tristan. The Sun. Academic Press, 2018, p. 1. 2. Duvalier, Gabrielle. "Size of the Moon", Scientific American, 51(78):46. 3. Uemura, Shū. The Sun's Heat. Academic Press, 2018, p. 2.

In the example above there are three references provided, but the claim statements do not indicate which reference applies where. Your edit request similarly does not specify where the references you have provided are to be placed. These links between material and their source references must be more clearly made, as shown in the next example below:

✅

The sun is pretty big,[1] but the moon is not so big.[2] The sun is also quite hot.[3]

References ^ Sjöblad, Tristan. The Sun. Academic Press, 2018, p. 1. ^ Duvalier, Gabrielle. "Size of the Moon", Scientific American, 51(78):46. ^ Uemura, Shū. The Sun's Heat. Academic Press, 2018, p. 2. 

In the example above, the links between the provided references and their claim statements are perfectly clear. Kindly reformulate your edit request so that it aligns more with the second example above, and feel free to re-submit that edit request at your earliest convenience. Regards,  Spintendo   17:21, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

Edit request
Thank you for considering this request, I think this will be closer to what you need and is minimally invasive.

Change Request #1: 

In 2013, BMC transitioned from a public to a private company. Investors included Bain Capital, Golden Gate Capital, Insight Venture Partners, GIC Private Limited's GIC Special Investments Pte Ltd, and Elliott Management Corporation.



In 2013, BMC transitioned from a public to a private company. Investors included Bain Capital, Golden Gate Capital, Insight Venture Partners, GIC Private Limited's GIC Special Investments Pte Ltd, and Elliott Management Corporation. In 2018, KKR, a leading global investment firm, acquired BMC.

Change Request #2:



Acquisition and privatization by private equity firms
BMC Software management and Board of Directors decided to leave the NASDAQ and end its time as a public company, sell significant portions of stock and go private. In May 2013, the IT services and cloud computing company announced that it was in the process of being acquired by a group of major private equity investment groups for $6.9 Billion. Those firms included Bain Capital, Golden Gate Capital, Insight Venture Partners, GIC Private Limited's subsidiary GIC Special Investments Pte Ltd and Elliott Management Corporation. The process was completed in September. As a result of this privatization, BMC Software stock was no longer listed on the NASDAQ, effective at the close of business on September 10, 2013.



Acquisition and privatization by private equity firms
BMC Software management and Board of Directors decided to leave the NASDAQ and end its time as a public company, sell significant portions of stock and go private. In May 2013, the IT services and cloud computing company announced that it was in the process of being acquired by a group of major private equity investment groups for $6.9 Billion. Those firms included Bain Capital, Golden Gate Capital, Insight Venture Partners, GIC Private Limited's subsidiary GIC Special Investments Pte Ltd and Elliott Management Corporation. The process was completed in September. As a result of this privatization, BMC Software stock was no longer listed on the NASDAQ, effective at the close of business on September 10, 2013. In 2018, KKR, a leading global investment firm, acquired BMC.

Wattssw (talk) 19:07, 19 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Using their own press releases as references in this manner seems overly promotional. Doing so while having a conflict of interest makes it look like outright promotion. --Ronz (talk) 20:04, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree that this is essentially promoting these changes. And we'd be hard pressed to locate independent sources on this, because any reporting done on this by other publications are doing so based on the press release as the impetus for the report. As a counterproposal, if this information could be summarized better, it might be more palatable having come from press releases. For instance"BMC Software management and Board of Directors decided to leave the NASDAQ and end its time as a public company, sell significant portions of stock and go private. In May 2013, the IT services and cloud computing company announced that it was in the process of being acquired by a group of major private equity investment groups for $6.9 Billion. Those firms included Bain Capital, Golden Gate Capital, Insight Venture Partners, GIC Private Limited's subsidiary GIC Special Investments Pte Ltd and Elliott Management Corporation. The process was completed in September. As a result of this privatization, BMC Software stock was no longer listed on the NASDAQ, effective at the close of business on September 10, 2013. In 2018, KKR, a leading global investment firm, acquired BMC." The text underlined in orange at the beginning is repeated again at the end of the paragraph. This repeating of messaging merely bloats the text. And the text underlined in red is not necessary to list these individual companies, especially in light of the fact that they are labled a "private equity investment group"—but not very private when announcing their purchases, apparently. This is not a summary. The proposed text should be placed in summary style. What do other editors ( included) think about this?  Spintendo   02:53, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

I was bold and removed the paragraph identified for the first part of the request. I see no reason why it belongs in the lede.

I'm concerned that the driving forces for the privatization and the details, as identified in the CNN ref (the only independent ref), are being ignored completely.

I trimmed back the paragraph identified for the second part of the request, and think some of the reasons for going private, and the terms of the purchase need to be added, per the CNN ref. --Ronz (talk) 03:44, 20 October 2018 (UTC)