InformationWeek

September 15, 1997

Unidata To Acquire O2

Nested database vendor becomes big player in object- database market

nidata Inc., a software developer that provides "nested" databases for companies migrating from mainframes to open systems, plans to acquire O2 Technology, a European supplier of object-oriented databases.

The acquisition, announced last week, makes Unidata one of the largest players in the growing market for object-oriented databases. The companies, both privately held, have combined revenue of about $56 million. "This changes the nature of the competition in the object database space," says Steve McClure, director of object tools with International Data Corp., a m arket research firm in Framingham, Mass. IDC estimates the market for object-oriented and object-relational databases will grow from $200 million this year to $1.2 billion by 2001.

Unidata, in Denver, and O2 Technology, in Versailles, France, were already working together to build an object-oriented database that would combine elements of their current products. A spokeswoman for the companies says Unidata will begin testing the new database, called Universal Object Server, by the end of this month.

Good Company
Universal Object Server could provide an excellent next-generation platform for Unidata's installed base of customers, says McClure. The system may even compare favorably to universal databases from IBM, Informix, Oracle, and Sybase, though competing against those companies may be difficult. "The big guys are still there. It's not going to displace them," says McClure.

Unidata has carved a niche with its special-purpose database, called the Unidata Nested RDBMS, which is used t o move applications and data written in Basic or Cobol to Unix systems. Its other products include development tools and database-analysis and -reporting software. In June, Unidata announced plans to integrate its data-mapping middleware with Microsoft's Component Object Model, making it easier to extend Unidata-based applications to Microsoft's SQL Server database.

The combined company will have offices in 17 countries, a sales channel of more than 600 value-added resellers, and 430 employees. Francois Bancilhon, CEO and founder of O2 Technology, will become chief technology officer at Unidata.

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