Research · Sep 3, 2026
[PRGS] Progress Software Thesis 2026: An App-Dev + Data-Management + DevOps Compounder
Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ: PRGS), headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts, is an Application-Development-and-Data-Management-and-DevOps-Software + emerging-multi-cycle-MarkLogic-and-Telerik-and-Sitefinity-and-emerging-ShareFile-acquired leader providing distinctive multi-cycle Application-Development-Software + emerging-Data-Management + emerging-DevOps + emerging-Content-Collaboration services to substantial multi-cycle US-and-emerging-multi-cycle-international Enterprise-Software-Developer + Mid-Market-and-Large-Enterprise + Government customer base. Distinctive multi-cycle Progress-Software heritage: founded 1981 by Joseph Alsop; 1991 NASDAQ Progress-Software-IPO; 2016 Yogesh Gupta CEO; 2017 substantial Telerik-and-Kemp; 2019 Ipswitch; 2021 Chef-and-Kemp-Technologies; 2023 substantial MarkLogic-acquisition (~$355M); 2024 substantial ShareFile-acquired-from-Cloud-Software-Group (~$875M). Multi-decade strategic-evolution: 1981 Progress-Software founding; 1991 NASDAQ-IPO; 2016 Yogesh Gupta CEO + multi-cycle-disciplined-bolt-on-M&A; 2017-2024 substantial multi-cycle-disciplined-bolt-on-M&A culminating in 2024 ShareFile-acquisition; 2020-2025 substantial multi-cycle post-COVID + emerging-Application-Development-and-DevOps + emerging-MarkLogic-and-ShareFile + emerging-Government-and-Public-Sector. Under President & CEO Yogesh Gupta (since 2016, ~9+ year longtime-Progress-Software-and-Kaseya-and-Sungard entrepreneur), FY2025 (Nov-FYE) closes with selected various aggregate revenue ~$770-870M, adj. EBITDA ~$315-385M, adj. EPS ~$4.55-5.50, net debt ~$1.30-1.55B, and ~43-46M shares outstanding. The first deep-dive — Application-Development-and-Data-Management-and-DevOps-and-Content-Collaboration franchise — covers entire business + Progress positioning. Geographic + Employee composition: ~2,000+ employees + ~globally-positioned-Application-Development-Software-development-and-distribution-facilities across US (Burlington-MA-HQ + Multi-Office) + emerging multi-jurisdiction-international (EMEA + India + Asia-Pacific). Revenue mix: Application-Development-and-Data-Management-and-DevOps-and-Content-Collaboration ~95-99%; Emerging-Other ~1-5%. Customer base: Enterprise-Software-Developer + Mid-Market-and-Large-Enterprise + Government + emerging-Healthcare-and-Financial-Services-and-Manufacturing-and-Public-Sector. Distinctive multi-cycle 2023-MarkLogic + 2024-ShareFile. Competes with Microsoft (MSFT + Azure-DevOps-GitHub-Power-Platform), Oracle (ORCL), Salesforce (CRM + MuleSoft), ServiceNow (NOW), SAP (SAP), IBM (IBM + Red-Hat-OpenShift), Red Hat (IBM-subsidiary), Atlassian (TEAM + Jira-Confluence-Bitbucket-Trello), GitLab (GTLB), GitHub (Microsoft-subsidiary 2018), HashiCorp (IBM-2024-acquired ~$6.4B), Cloud Software Group (Bain-Vista-take-private 2022 + Citrix-and-TIBCO + 2024-ShareFile-divested-to-PRGS), MongoDB (MDB), Snowflake (SNOW), Databricks (private), Confluent (CFLT + Kafka), Elastic (ESTC), Splunk (Cisco-CSCO-acquired 2024 ~$28B), Cisco (CSCO), Couchbase (BASE + 2024-Haveli-take-private ~$1.5B), Dynatrace (DT), Datadog (DDOG), New Relic (Francisco-TPG-take-private 2023), AppDynamics (Cisco-subsidiary), Solace (private), DBT Labs (private), Fivetran (private), Informatica (Salesforce-CRM-acquired 2024 ~$8B), Talend (Thoma-Bravo-and-Qlik-acquired 2023), Qlik (Thoma-Bravo-private); Mid-Market Telerik (PRGS-subsidiary), Sitefinity (PRGS-subsidiary), OutSystems (private), Mendix (Siemens-SIE-DE-acquired 2018), Pegasystems (PEGA), Appian (APPN), Nintex (private), ServiceMax (PTC-acquired 2023), Boomi (Francisco-TPG-take-private 2021), Workato (private); Content-Collaboration Dropbox (DBX), Box (BOX), Microsoft (SharePoint-OneDrive-Teams), Google (Workspace-Drive), Citrix (Cloud-Software-Group-private + ShareFile-divested-to-PRGS); DevOps Red Hat (IBM-subsidiary), Puppet (Perforce-Software-private-acquired 2022), Chef (PRGS-acquired 2020-2021 ~$220M), Ansible (Red-Hat-subsidiary), SaltStack (VMware-Broadcom-subsidiary), HashiCorp (IBM-2024-acquired); Government Tyler Technologies (TYL), Verint Systems (VRNT), Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH), CACI International (CACI), Leidos (LDOS), SAIC (SAIC), General Dynamics (GD + GDIT); private-equity-Enterprise-Software Thoma Bravo (private), Vista Equity Partners (private), Bain Capital (private), Apollo (APO), Carlyle (CG), KKR (KKR), Blackstone (BX), Francisco Partners (private + 2023-New-Relic-take-private), TPG (TPG + 2024-Couchbase-emerging), Permira (private), CVC Capital Partners (CVC-AMS), Hg Capital (private), Genstar (private), Insight Partners (private), Sumeru Equity Partners (private), Mainsail Partners (private), Marlin Equity Partners (private), Haveli Investments (private + 2024-Couchbase-take-private ~$1.5B); Enterprise-Software-customer JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America (BAC), Wells Fargo (WFC), Citigroup (C), Goldman Sachs (GS), Morgan Stanley (MS), UnitedHealth (UNH), CVS Health (CVS), Walmart (WMT), Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Google (GOOG), Amazon (AMZN), Meta (META), Tesla (TSLA), Nvidia (NVDA); Government US-Department-of-Defense + US-Department-of-Veterans-Affairs + US-Department-of-Homeland-Security + US-state-government. The second deep-dive — Yogesh-Gupta + Multi-Cycle-Disciplined-Bolt-on-M-A + 2023-MarkLogic + 2024-ShareFile + multi-decade compounder thesis — covers Yogesh-Gupta-CEO (~9+ year longtime-Progress-Software-and-Kaseya-and-Sungard entrepreneur) expertise + Founder Joseph Alsop + multi-cycle-Progress-Software-Capital-Management leadership-continuity, 1991-NASDAQ-IPO + 2017-Telerik + 2019-Ipswitch + 2021-Chef + 2023-MarkLogic + 2024-ShareFile transformational-platform + multi-cycle-disciplined-bolt-on-M&A, emerging-Application-Development-and-DevOps + emerging-Data-Management + emerging-Content-Collaboration + emerging-Government-and-Public-Sector structural-tailwinds. Multi-cycle reliable-and-emerging-growing-dividend (~$0.72/yr ~1.0-2.0% yield ~7+ year continuous post-2018-restoration) + multi-cycle-disciplined-share-buyback ($60-150M/yr). Multi-decade compounder thesis combines Progress-Software-and-Burlington-MA ~44+ year heritage (founded 1981 + 1991 NASDAQ-IPO + 2016-Yogesh-Gupta-CEO), ~2,000+ employees + ~globally-positioned-Application-Development-Software-development-facilities, 2017-Telerik + 2019-Ipswitch + 2021-Chef + 2023-MarkLogic + 2024-ShareFile + multi-cycle-disciplined-bolt-on-M&A, Yogesh Gupta + Kaseya + Sungard + Progress-Software expertise, multi-cycle reliable-and-emerging-growing-dividend + multi-cycle-disciplined-share-buyback + Sub-IG-emerging balance-sheet, emerging-Application-Development-and-DevOps + emerging-Data-Management + emerging-Content-Collaboration + emerging-Government-and-Public-Sector structural-tailwinds. Capital position is Sub-IG-emerging (Ba3/BB-), dividend-reliable-and-emerging-growing + multi-cycle-disciplined-share-buyback, conservative-and-multi-cycle-leveraged-post-2024-ShareFile-acquisition: net debt ~$1.30-1.55B (~3.0-4.0x leverage), Ba3/BB- equivalent, $0.05-0.20B liquidity, $0.72/yr dividend (~1.0-2.0% yield, ~13-16% payout, ~7+ year continuous post-2018-restoration) + ~$60-150M/yr buyback + multi-cycle-disciplined-bolt-on-M&A + emerging-Application-Development-and-Data-Management-and-DevOps capex + multi-cycle-2024-ShareFile-acquisition-debt-paydown, ~43-46M shares. At ~$50-80 per share, equity value ~$2.2-3.5B, EV ~$3.5-5.0B, ~11-17x EPS and ~9-14x EV/EBITDA. Base case: Application-Development-and-DevOps constructive + emerging-MarkLogic + emerging-ShareFile + emerging-Government + revenue $810-910M + adj. EBITDA $340-410M + adj. EPS $4.95-6.05 + dividend hiked + ~5-15% return. Bull case: Application-Development-and-DevOps accelerates + emerging-MarkLogic inflects + emerging-ShareFile inflects-substantially + emerging-Government inflects + revenue $860-960M + adj. EPS $5.50-6.75 + dividend hiked + selective-M&A + emerging-strategic-acquisition-target (Microsoft + Oracle + Salesforce + ServiceNow + SAP + IBM + Atlassian + GitLab + Cloud-Software-Group + MongoDB + Snowflake + Databricks + Elastic + Splunk + Cisco + Couchbase + private-equity-Thoma-Bravo-Vista-Bain-Apollo-Carlyle-KKR-Blackstone-Francisco-TPG-Permira-CVC-Hg-Genstar-Insight-Sumeru-Mainsail-Marlin-Haveli interest) + re-rate 13-20x + 25-50%+ return + takeout-premium-upside. Bear case: Application-Development-and-DevOps stresses + emerging-MarkLogic-and-ShareFile-integration disappoints + adj. EPS $3.00-3.70 + de-rate 7-11x + flat-to-substantially-negative.