the financial scandal was still burning bright at Peregrine Systems. So a big payout for Service-now’s two top executives might be galling to many people who followed the Peregrine Systems saga over the past seven years, as well as the shareholders who lost billions when Peregrine collapsed into bankruptcy in 2002.
The ensuing federal investigation resulted in 15 guilty pleas among key Peregrine figures—including CEO Stephen Gardner and CFO Matt Gless—for conspiracy, securities fraud and other federal charges. The feds uncovered a nearly three-year effort by Peregrine insiders to inflate the company’s software sales (and hide its debt and losses) to keep the company’s stock price flying high.
Luddy, who was Peregrine Systems’ chief technology officer, and his brother Rob (who had also worked at Peregrine) founded Service-now.com in 2003, after they had left Peregrine, to basically meet the same business needs that Peregrine had served when it was one of San Diego’s hottest technology stocks.
Peregrine Systems specialized in enterprise software that helps big companies and other organizations keep track of their assets, including computers, software licenses, and other equipment. Peregrine also had developed software that was installed within the firewall of corporate computer networks to help system administrators manage their “help desk” operations.
Luddy developed Service-now.com’s software to do basically do the same thing—except that instead of selling software as a product, it is designed to operate as Web-based SaaS (Software as a Service) that is maintained and updated on computers controlled by Service-now.com. As Luddy told me in 2007, “There’s almost no similarity in how the software was built or is delivered, how it performs, is maintained, and how it is paid for.”
Still, the Peregrine scandal cast a long shadow, and there are several connections between the now-defunct company and Service-now.com. One is that Service-now.com has raised about $7.5 million in venture capital from the San Diego office of JMI Equity, the private investment firm established by John Moores, who was Peregrine Systems’ biggest investor and longtime chairman. (JMI general partner Paul Barber and venture partner Charles Ramsey continue to sit on Service-Now’s board of directors.)
Moores became a lightning rod for investors’ ire throughout the Peregrine debacle because he had sold nearly his entire majority stake in Peregrine before the financial wrongdoing became public. Moores’ lawyers argued successfully, however, that he knew nothing about the fraud. That positioned was buttressed by former CEO Gardner, who testified in federal court that he had repeatedly lied to Peregrine’s board.
In a way, Luddy and Service-now have started over with a new vision of software that was well-regarded by many software industry veterans, despite Peregrine’s financial scandal. And while Luddy was a senior Peregrine executive, he has managed to convey the impression that he was in the basement writing code while others were busy exaggerating sales. The feds never charged Luddy with any criminal wrongdoing, and Chedrick never worked at Peregrine.
Under the circumstances, it’s hard to believe the Form D notation is right. But then, again, how could it be wrong?
