DBMS Client/Server Connection

July 1997

By Clara Parkes

Turbulent Times: Acquisitions, Mergers, and Staff Stealings

Financial Bloodbath at Informix

Having apparently lost its core focus amid the much-publicized universal server battles, Informix Software Inc. (Menlo Park, Calif.) announced grim financial results for the first quarter of 1997. Revenues for the quarter were $133.7 million, down 34 percent from revenues of $204 million in the same quarter last year. The company reported a loss of $140.1 million for the period. Included in this is a one-time charge related to the acquisition of Centerview Software ($7 million) and $30.5 million related to the write-off of goodwill and other long-term assets. Alan Henricks, CFO of Informix since January of this year, announced his resignation effective immediately. Informix is now undergoing severe organizational changes to try and steady itself. Among other things, the company announced that it will downsize certain operations and change its sales and marketing organizations. Although the changes are intended to cut costs over the long term, they will result in an additional restructuring charge in the second quarter.

A Sterling Achievement

Texas Instruments Inc. (Dallas) sold its software business to Sterling Software Inc. (Dallas) for $165 million. Texas Instruments' software business, which had been a codesigner of the Microsoft Repository, will be merged with Sterling's existing application development business on completion of the acquisition, which is expected to be in mid-June. Founded in the mid-1980s, Texas Instruments Software competed in the enterprise applications development arena with such products as the Composer component-based application development tool and Performer, another application development environment. Sterling plans to integrate these tools with its own Key family of application development tools for workflow modeling and business process reengineering.

EveryWare and InContext Merge

EveryWare Development Canada Corp. (Mississauga, Ontario, Canada) and InContext Systems (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) have executed a letter of intent to merge their operations. EveryWare's products include the Tango visual application development tool suite for Web-database access, and Bolero, a Web site administration tool. InContext's products include InContext, Spider, FlashSite, SiteCommand, WebAnalyzer, and the InContext SDK.

Borland Takes a Beating

Borland International Inc. (Scotts Valley, Calif.) released its fourth-quarter fiscal results for 1997. Fourth-quarter revenues were $37.5 million, compared to $70.5 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 1996. The quarter's financial results include a $23.1 million charge associated with a worldwide restructuring and reserves for other nonrecurring expenses aimed at returning the company to profitability in fiscal 1998. The restructuring included a 30 percent reduction in the company's workforce. The net loss for fiscal 1997 can also be attributed in part to Borland's acquisition of Open Environment, in which Borland assumed net losses of $12.2 million incurred by Open Environment in its first and second quarters of 1996.

On the heels of dismal fourth-quarter fiscal 1997 results, Borland announced that it is spinning off an independently operated subsidiary for its InterBase database product. The subsidiary will be based in Scotts Valley under the leadership of newly appointed president Jim Weil, and it will focus on marketing InterBase to OEMs and VARs, as well as dedicate additional resources to Java server-side development.

As part of its efforts to return the company to profitability, Borland also appointed Dr. Richard A. LeFaivre as chief technical officer. Prior to this appointment, LeFaivre was VP of Apple Computer Inc.'s Advanced Technology Group.

Brain Drain at Sybase

Only weeks after David Dewan, vice president of Powersoft Inc. (a subsidiary of Sybase Inc., Concord, Mass.), announced that he was leaving the company to join startup SilverStream Software, another Sybase/Powersoft exec announced his departure as well. David A. Litwack, cofounder of Powersoft, resigned as executive vice president of products at Sybase (Emeryville, Calif.) to join Dewan at the new startup.

SilverStream's Web Application Platform creates enterprise Java applications that access relational databases as well as legacy data sources; the product also generates Java applications on both the client and server.

E-Commerce Explosion

Possibly the biggest deal so far this year came in late April when Hewlett-Packard Co. acquired VeriFone for $1.18 billion. The move places HP on par with IBM in the e-commerce arena. Under the terms of the agreement, VeriFone will continue to operate as an independent subsidiary of Hewlett-Packard, using technology developed by both companies to develop and deploy online commerce and smart card applications for consumers and businesses.

This move came just a few days after IBM Corp. (Armonk, N.Y.) and Lotus Development Corp. (a subsidiary of IBM, Cambridge, Mass.) announced their roadmap for e-business applications. In the announcement, IBM and Lotus both presented new products and repositioned existing products within an "e" framework that includes five Web application servers; Enterprise Connectors software for IBM; Enhancer products for IBM security, scalability, interoperability, and ease of Web administration; and visual programming tools for dynamic Internet/Intranet applications. IBM also announced the Network Computing Framework for e-business. The framework features a Java-based unified programming model and leverages JavaBeans component technology.

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Updated Wednesday, June 18, 1997