Platinum Technology Inc. was founded by
Andrew Filipowski
Andrew J. "Flip" Filipowski is a Polish American technology entrepreneur born in 1950 in Chicago. He is currently the executive chairman and CEO of SilkRoad Equity, a private investment firm, and founded Platinum technology in 1987. He is also c ...
in 1987 to market and support deployment of
database
In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases spa ...
management software products and the applications enabled by database management technology and to render related services. Over its 12-year history, it was known for its acquisition of other companies, having bought more than 50 companies between 1994 and 1999 and growing to become the eighth largest global software company with revenue of a billion dollars per year. Acquisitions included Altai, Inc. (1995), AutoSystems Corporation, Brownstone Solutions, ICON Computing, Intervista Software, Software Interfaces,
Locus Computing Corporation
Locus Computing Corporation was formed in 1982 by Gerald J. Popek, Charles S. Kline and Gregory I. Thiel
to commercialize the technologies developed for the LOCUS distributed operating system at UCLA. Locus was notable for commercializing sing ...
, LBMS (1998),
Logic Works
Logic Works Inc. was a software company created by CEO Benjamin C. Cohen based in Princeton, New Jersey. Their flagship product was an IDEF1X modeling and database design tool
called ER''win'' (ERwin) whose name is formed from an initialism of E ...
(1998),
Protosoft
Platinum Technology Inc. was founded by Andrew Filipowski in 1987 to market and support deployment of database management software products and the applications enabled by database management technology and to render related services. Over its ...
, RELTECH Group, Memco Software, Softool, SQL TOOLS, Inc., Trinzic, Viatech and
VREAM
VREAM, Inc. was a US technology company that functioned between 1991 and 1996. It was one of the first companies to develop PC-based software for authoring and viewing virtual reality (VR) environments.
Company history
The company was founde ...
(1996).
["PLATINUM TECHNOLOGY, INC. FORM S-1"](_blank)
, November 12, 1997. Retrieved 2014-11-30. The company was a member of the
UML Partners UML Partners was a consortium of system integrators and vendors convened in 1996 to specify the Unified Modeling Language (UML).
Initially the consortium was led by Grady Booch, Ivar Jacobson, and James Rumbaugh of Rational Software. The UML Pa ...
consortium.
Acquisition by Computer Associates
In March 1999, Platinum was itself acquired by
Computer Associates
CA Technologies, formerly known as CA, Inc. and Computer Associates International, Inc., is an American multinational corporation headquartered in New York City. It is primarily known for its business-to-business (B2B) software with a product p ...
(CA) for 3.5 billion U.S. dollars, at that time the largest transaction in the history of the software industry. CA offered $29.25 per share, almost a three-to-one premium over Platinum's stock price of $9.875.
Transition
In 2001, CA was sued by the
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a United States federal executive departments, federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and a ...
(DOJ), alleging that the two companies prematurely reduced competition between each other. The DOJ claimed that this was achieved by agreeing to limit discounts offered to customers before the deal was completed.
Acquisitions
Protosoft
In November 1995, Protosoft was acquired by Platinum Technology for 40 million U.S. dollars. Protosoft was founded by Dr. Anthony Lekkos and Erick Rivas in 1990 to develop and market Paradigm Plus, an object-oriented analysis and design (
OOAD
Object-oriented analysis and design (OOAD) is a technical approach for analyzing and designing an application, system, or business by applying object-oriented programming, as well as using visual modeling throughout the software development proces ...
) modeling product and associated
code generation and
reverse engineering
Reverse engineering (also known as backwards engineering or back engineering) is a process or method through which one attempts to understand through deductive reasoning how a previously made device, process, system, or piece of software accompli ...
tools.
Memco Software
In September 1998, Platinum Technology acquired Israeli company Memco Software (Nasdaq: MEMCF). The acquisition was accounted for as a stock-for-stock pooling of interests valued at just more than $400 million. The combined offering of both companies was aimed at providing a complete software security solution for protecting enterprise networks, databases, and systems across multiple platforms.
With this merger; Platinum was hoping to become a major security software provider in areas such as access control, single sign-on, user and database security administration, authentication, intrusion detection, secure communications, and policy audit.
Memco Software was founded in 1990 in
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the G ...
, Israel; in 1996 it had an
initial public offering
An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investme ...
on NASDAQ, raising $50 million. Following the acquisition of Platinum by Computer Associates, Memco Software became the basis for CA’s research and development center in Israel.
References
{{reflist
External links
Press release following acquisition
Defunct software companies of the United States
Software companies based in Illinois
Companies based in DuPage County, Illinois
Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois
Software companies established in 1987
Software companies disestablished in 1999
Defunct companies based in Illinois
CA Technologies
1999 mergers and acquisitions