Atlassian's (TEAM 2.64%) growth strategy has always had an acquisition component. It's invested over $1 billion in 30 acquisitions in the last decade, according to its investor day presentation from November 2020. This may leave investors wondering if the company has a talented research and development team capable of developing products on their own. On a Fool Live episode recorded on May 12, Fool.com contributors Brian Stoffel and Toby Bordelon discuss why shareholders can rest easy knowing that this team collaboration software specialist is capable of growing its product portfolio, even without acquisitions.
Toby Bordelon: Brian, looking back, it looks like a lot of that growth has come from acquisitions in part. Do you think that can continue, and if not, are they going to be able to develop the homegrown product and services that can keep driving growth without the acquisitions?
Brian Stoffel: Toby, that's a great question. I think that they can, but my thesis behind it Atlassian is that I do believe that we are going to reach a time when instead of getting the best software-as-a-service company for this specific task, and that one, and that one, and that one, companies are going to choose one that has a broad enough umbrella of good enough products to use, so that's why their acquisitions have worked.
But to your point, they announced four new products that they're going to be releasing over the next year, that they are developing in collaboration with all of the customers that they have, which is great. There's JIRA Work Management, there's Compass which gives the development team a bird's eye view of digital services, Halp, which is help tickets, very clever use of words there, and JIRA Product Discovery and Team Central. Just an example of how they're using the roster of customers that they have to develop some new tools.
