Embarcadero Technologies to Acquire CodeGear
Embarcadero Technologies, a privately-held company of Thomas Cressey Bravo, has signed a definitive asset purchase agreement with Borland Software Corp. to acquire its CodeGear division. Embarcadero Technologies offers professional grade database tools that companies use to design, develop and manage databases and the data they contain. CodeGear delivers high-productivity development tools for software developers, ranging from individuals to enterprise teams. The acquisition makes Embarcadero the world's largest, independent software provider offering an integrated portfolio to design, develop, manage and optimize heterogeneous applications and their databases, Embarcadero stated.
Embarcadero expects to pay a purchase price of approximately $23 million to Borland for the CodeGear assets. Once the transaction is closed, Wayne Williams, CEO of Embarcadero Technologies, will lead the combined business.
The acquisition of CodeGear, Greg Keller, vice president, product management, told 5 Minute Briefing, “Completes our story as being, we feel, the primary and only independent tools provider with the type of breadth and coverage we have to serve what we are referring to as the 'software professional' - ranging from those that code against various languages, from Java to Ruby on Rails to Delphi and C++ - all through the spectrum to the creation and management of database code - which is also software, obviously - ranging from Oracle to Sybase to DB2, MySQL, SQL Server and so on.” The combination of the two companies, he observed, is significant in providing “a common independent tools provider to the software professional.”
The synergies between the companies make the acquisition a logical move, according to Embarcadero. Embarcadero has observed that the job roles of users among the traditional Embarcadero base, “is dramatically expanding. They are getting more involved in application infrastructure,” noted Keller. Moreover, “software developers are now spending upwards of 60 percent or more of their time working on or against relational databases,” said Keller. With Embarcadero's purchase of CodeGear, he noted, ”we have a conjoinment of two, pure-play tools providers” - one that has been serving the application developer audience for 25 years and Embarcadero, which “has been doing the same, nearly identically and in parallel, for the database software professional for 15 or more years,” Keller said.
To learn more about CodeGear and its products, go here. For more about Embarcadero, go here.
Back
to top
Sybase, Ants Software Partner on Migration Technology
Sybase, a leading provider of enterprise infrastructure, mobile software and mobile services, and ANTs software, a leader in compatible, high-performance SQL data management systems, have entered into a partnership to develop a version of the ANTs Compatibility Server (ACS) aimed at accelerating the migration to Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE) database and Sybase IQ analytics server. In connection with the partnership agreement, Sybase will license certain ANTs technology.
The initial aim of the partnership will be to develop a version of ANTs ACS to help Microsoft SQL Server customers to take advantage of Sybase ASE. Given the already common source code lineage between Sybase ASE and Microsoft SQL Server, the ANTs Compatibility Server will facilitate an easy migration for Microsoft customers. According to Sybase officials, the compatibility server could help ease the migration to the latest ASE Cluster Edition, as well as Sybase IQ, a leading column-oriented database.
Sybase first investigated and purchased a copy of ANTs’ high performance database code. “During due diligence, they got a feel of the quality of our development,” Joseph Kozak, chairman and chief executive officer of ANTs Software, told 5 Minute Briefing. The product will be developed using the same strategy used in the development of ANTs’ first compatibility server, which eased the migration from Sybase to Oracle databases. End-users will be recruited to form a consortium and the compatibility server will be created to address current applications in production.
The ANTs Compatibility Server provides a faster, more cost-effective method to move applications from one database platform to another and with minimal to no application rewrite. “We are looking to work with all the database vendors,” Kozak said. For more information about ANTs software, go here. For more information about Sybase, go here.
Back
to top
db4o Open Source Object-Oriented Database Supports LINQ
db4objects, creator of a leading open source object database, has announced that its db4o object database is now optimized for Microsoft’s LINQ. According to the company, db4o is the first object-oriented databases in the industry to support this new set of extensions to Microsoft’s .NET Framework. With the new support, developers are free to choose an object-oriented optimized engine without having to change the API or compromise performance. “This is an important affirmation of our general direction in supporting native queries and reduces the risk of using db4o,” said Anat Gafni, vice president of engineering at db4objects.
Choosing an ODBMS eliminates the burden of translating objects into tables, a process that is time-consuming and prone to mismatch problems, thus allowing the developer to stay focused on the problem logic. A native ODBMS enables the persisted objects to be identical to those created in the object-oriented programming language and to purely reflect the logic inherent to the problem. “The full power of complex object structures and the development environment is often lost or compromised when translating to/from SQL,” Gafni said, “We have optimized our support for LINQ so that queries are executed in a high-performance fashion.”
The new LINQ extensions encompass language-integrated data query, set, and transform operations. It includes extensions to the C# and Visual Basic languages with native language syntax for queries and provides class libraries to take advantage of these capabilities. With the LINQ extensions, developers can choose to use either a relational database or db4o with no change in their application code.
Gafni anticipates that developers may integrate both kinds of databases into applications. Object-oriented databases are particularly suited for applications with complex data structures or data structures that change. They can also be effectively embedded in control systems. With this announcement, developers may take a second look at object-oriented databases, she added. db4object’s db4o database offers a persistence solution to store objects of any complexity natively, with only a single line of code and embedded Java and .NET engine leverages many optimization techniques such as Transparent Activation to bolster its lead of up to 44-times faster performance. The database automatically activates objects only when needed, thereby loading the absolute minimum from disk, which consumes less memory and boosts performance. For more information, go here.
Back
to top
TIBCO Spotfire Introduces Real-Time Process-Specific Analytics
In what officials described as a very significant announcement, Spotfire, a division of TIBCO Software, has announced TIBCO Spotfire Operations Analytics, which allows customers to deploy real-time process-specific analytics applications and streamline business process control across the organization. The new software embeds event processing into Spotfire’s business intelligence platform. According to the company, TIBCO now offers the only event-driven, closed-loop analytics software on the market for achieving actionable, real-time business intelligence (BI). “We have combined real-time elements from TIBCO with Spotfire for real-time actionable BI,” Brad Hopper, senior director of industry solutions for TIBCO’s Spotfire Division, told 5 Minute Briefing in a private interview.
According to Hopper, TIBCO Spotfire Operations Analytics closes the business process improvement loop by automatically preparing an interactive analysis application of a real-time process based on customer-defined rules. Using this application on their desktop, business professionals can quickly perform root-cause analysis and then revise rule parameters to improve future business performance. “You can solve the problem in real time,” he said.
Leveraging Spotfire in-memory enterprise analytics and TIBCO run-time infrastructure, TIBCO Spotfire Operations Analytics includes: dynamic key performance indicator (KPI) definition and syndication which provides a visual design-time environment for parameterized business rules real-time Six Sigma process control using time-tested Western Electric rules root-cause analysis and iterative KPI updates for closed loop process improvement optional BPM integration for cross-organizational problem solving.
Applications like this one have been on the drawing board since TIBCO acquired Spotfire around a year ago. It allows Spotfire to move into the process automation space and deliver higher value, he said, and it makes the TIBCO stack more accessible to business users. “Spotfire puts a front end and a visual interface to the TIBCO stack,” he said. For more information, visit here.
Back
to top
SpringSource Releases SpringSource Application Platform
SpringSource, the company behind Spring Portfolio, an enterprise Java application platform, has announced the SpringSource Application Platform, an enterprise Java application server that the company says provides a simpler alternative to legacy application servers. The SpringSource Application Platform is available in beta for download on the SpringSource Web site. Open source and commercial versions of the product are planned for general availability in June 2008.
With this product, organizations now have a choice that reduces the complexity associated with legacy Java EE servers, and delivers functionality for the middle tier that provides exactly what is required for runtime application deployment and management, according to Rod Johnson, CEO of SpringSource. “Existing platforms tend to be constrained by a lot of baggage,” Johnson told 5 Minute Briefing. “We believe that we have a competitive advantage in that our platform is built on today's technologies not the technology of 10 years ago.” The new platform utilizes Spring, Eclipse, OSGi and Apache Tomcat technologies to create a complete enterprise application stack, including both a deployment platform and a productive programming model.
There are two things that stand out about the release, said Johnson. “One is the fact that it is a logical extension of everything we have done with the Spring Portfolio. It is a logical extension of the Spring way of combining simplicity and power,” said Johnson. The other significant aspect is that “it is based on a new architectural paradigm. The server is completely modular,” said Johnson. “We believe this gives us the ability to deliver lean, mean infrastructure that does exactly what developers want.”
For the operations team, said SpringSource, the SpringSource Application Platform features seamless application and resource library upgrades, side-by-side version deployments, as well as application monitoring and analysis from URL throughput to query, cache and transaction statistics, while for the development team, it provides a flexible and resilient development server that resolves application dependency problems that are a common challenge with legacy Java EE application packaging. The SpringSource Application Platform allows repeated incremental deployments without server restarts, shortening iterative development-test cycles and providing a platform for agile development approaches. For more information, go here.
Back
to top
Panorama Analytics for Google Docs Supports SQL Server Analysis Services Data
Panorama Software, a leader in business intelligence, which recently announced a strategic partnership to provide Google Docs with a business intelligence and visualization capability, has unveiled a new solution for the enterprise level market. The beta version of its newly developed functionality for Google Docs supports of its first enterprise data source - Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services. According to Panorama, this is the first in a series of enhancements and new functionalities that Panorama will roll out for Google Docs in the coming months.
Panorama Analytics for Google Docs, launched in March, offers an advanced analytics, reporting and data visualization solution for Google applications. Focused on pivot table and charting functionality, Panorama’s solution is intended to make spreadsheets in Google Docs and dashboards in iGoogle more useful.
The new support for Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services is an important additional element, Oudi Antebi, vice president of marketing and strategy for Panorama Software, told 5 Minute Briefing. “SQL Server Analysis Services is the only external data source supported by Excel spreadsheets and is the most commonly used scenario for using spreadsheet-based BI on corporate data,” said Antebi.
By adding support for SQL Server Analysis Services, enterprise companies can now use Google Docs, a software as a service-based spreadsheet, to get more out of their enterprise data, according to the companies. According to Antebi, Google Spreadsheets provides a “significantly more economical way” to use a productivity suite. Additionally, because it is provided as a service, it offers advantages in terms of collaboration. “Now users can perform real-time analytics in a collaborative environment outside the firewall – be it suppliers, customers, partners.” Moreover, he said, there are benefits in terms of mobility because users can access spreadsheets and BI from any computer and all that is needed is a browser.
The new enhancement is being made available as a beta version and requires registration on Panorama’s Web site. Two levels of integration will be offered; free and fee-based options.
The solution will be free for customers that upload their data into Panorama’s PowerApps platform for Google Docs in the form of an offline cube file. Panorama will offer an application from SDG Computing as a download to help customers easily create and upload the offline cube files necessary for the free version.
The solution will also be offered as a premium, fee-based service that will enable a live connection to SQL Server Analysis Services. For the premium version, Panorama is partnering with Data Intelligence Ltd. For more information, go here.
Back
to top |
