In-Depth

May Industry News

• 05/01/1999

Following week-long negotiations, Computer Associates (CA) and Illinois-based PLATINUM technology, inc. entered into a merger agreement for CA’s acquisition of PLATINUM in a transaction valued at approximately $3.6 billion, adding roughly 0.25 cents to CA’s earnings per share.

Sanjay Kumar, CA’s president, approached PLATINUM’s president, Andrew "Flip" Filipowski in mid-March with the proposition; Filipowski was "adamant" in saying that the company was not for sale. According to Kumar, further discussions revealed that the synergies between the companies’ products made this a "win-win transaction that will forever change how value is defined in the software industry."

The combined companies will offer a comprehensive solution set for post-Y2K enterprise systems, and developments will be made within DB tools, data warehousing, application lifecycle management and Internet technologies. Preliminary talks have begun to determine how to integrate PLATINUM’s data warehousing tools with CA’s Jasmine products.

CA’s purchase follows the finalization of PLATINUM’s acquisition of MEMCO Organization, an Israeli-based security software supplier. CA has announced a worldwide hiring freeze until corporate restructuring has been completed.

For more information, visit CA’s Web site at www.cai.com, or contact them at (516) 342-5224.

Compaq Computer Corporation and Polaris Communications, Inc. have partnered to provide direct channel connections between Compaq NonStop Computers and IBM or plug-compatible mainframes. ES Connect provides any-to-any connections up to 50MB a second through the Compaq ProLiant NT server and Polaris’ PCI-to-ESCON adapter card. The NonStop system handles the link from download to initialization, relieving congestion on LANs and routed networks and offering throughput of over 8.2 MB a second. For more information, visit Compaq’s Web site at www.compaq.com.

Accelr8’s Web service offerings range from Y2K problem analysis and remediation to VMS, UNIX or Windows NT migration. Clients worldwide are eligible to sign up on Accelr8’s site. You must sign up before placing any orders. The analysis of the client’s code will be performed at Accelr8’s site after customers have delivered their code. Analysis will be done using Accelr8’s Navig8 2000 Enterprise. With this software, Accelr8 is capable of detecting problems in an ASCII text source code using its scanner and language-specific parsing engines. For more information, visit Accelr8’s Web site at www.accelr8.com.

IBM will provide a two-year, no-charge protection program for customers installing SAP Ready-to-Run R/3 applications on newly purchased RS/6000 high-availability servers. SAP is a premier alliance partner of IBM.

The program is designed to eliminate the guesswork involved in selecting a server that will run a customer’s ERP workload. The protection program will ensure that the IBM-sized and recommended RS/6000 system will meet agreed upon ERP workload expectations, or IBM will upgrade the customer’s processor, memory, or both, at no charge.

This Performance Protection Plan for RS/6000 is part of the RS/6000 Solution Series for ERP, which is based on the Ready-to-Run R/3 implementation of R/3. The RS/6000 Solution Series for ERP and SAP Ready-to-Run R/3 is the second in a series of integrated ERP solutions, following a comparable Baan solution announced in November 1998.

The RS/6000 Solution Series for ERP and SAP Ready-to-Run R/3 is available through selected IBM Business Partners. First-time ERP customers are guided through a selection process designed to match a system to their needs. After selecting the package that fits their needs, customers can enroll in the Performance Protection Plan.

With the TrackIT remote activated anti-theft system, your notebook is safe from theft while in airports and "on-the-go" environments. The TrackIT system works using radio waves that create a signal. The control unit is small enough to fit on a key chain or attach to your belt. The receiving unit fits into a briefcase, luggage or a pocket. Once the signal is broken (between 1-40 feet, depending on the range selected) the receiver emits a sound at 110+dB. The system automatically rearms itself when the transmitter and receiver are within signal range.

For more information, contact Segull Security Systems at (888) 781-6562, or visit www.segullsecurity.com.