bg0l+@andrew.cmu.edu (Bruce E. Golightly) (09/14/90)
Picked up some really odd news this week. Ingres Corp. was purchased by ASK. ANybody out there have any useful information about what's going on? My understanding is that ASK markets management type software. THis suggests that Ingres is going to become the platform for a variety of commercial applications, and that there will be aggreessive marketing of those applications and consulting services to go along with them.
itkin@mrspoc.Transact.COM (Steven M. List) (09/27/90)
bg0l+@andrew.cmu.edu (Bruce E. Golightly) writes: >Picked up some really odd news this week. Ingres Corp. was purchased by ASK. >ANybody out there have any useful information about what's going on? My >understanding is that ASK markets management type software. THis suggests >that Ingres is going to become the platform for a variety of commercial >applications, and that there will be aggreessive marketing of those >applications and consulting services to go along with them. First, the buyout: ASK sold 20% of their company to EDS and 10% to HP. These sales represent $40M and $20M respectively. Then, using those funds plus $30M of their own and a $20M (or so) bank line, they have purchased Ingres for approximately $110M. Since Ingres is the database foundation of ASK's products, this made great sense. ASK has long had a strategic relationship with DEC for their products. Their products are in the manufacturing arena, and have been available on DEC VAX hardware. The new arrangement expands their marketplace by bringing HP into the picture and EDS as a potential sales arm. They haven't made any specific statements about the future positioning of Ingres, but I suspect that Bruce's question is right on the mark. Given that Ingres had been floundering, it would seem that acquisition by a successful software company (who has had a business and technical relation- ship with the purchased company) who is in turn now partially owned by TWO successful companies should mean good things for the company and the product. The deal will not be final for another month or so, I believe. There was a fairly detailed writeup in the Wall Street Journal, among many other places. -- +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ : Steven List @ Transact Software, Inc. :^>~ : : Chairman, Unify User Group of Northern California : : {apple,coherent,limbo,mips,pyramid,ubvax}!itkin@guinan.Transact.COM :
chesky@portia.Stanford.EDU (Snehylata Gupta) (09/29/90)
In article <1990Sep27.145216.12068@morrow.stanford.edu> AR.BXA@forsythe.stanford.edu (Bob Anderson) writes: > Stuff deleted >My knowledge of ASK is now 5 years old, and is quite likely >not up-to-date, but... > >MY recollection is that the ORIGINAL ASK product (MANMAN) >and it's follow on products (OMAR <order management>, AP, GL >FA, SERVICEMAN etc) we're all particular to a manufacturing >application, were written (in FORTRAN <??>, for HP's >proprietary IMAGE DBMS. I know they operated in that mode >exclusively for quite a few years, because i was S/M on an >old HP 3000/70 that was bought exactly because it was the >ONLY platform for ASK. Altho i was more into systems at the > > stuff deleted >bob anderson >stanford > Your recollections are correct. Currently I am working for one of ASK's biggest clients. Our platform is VAX VMS the system is till wriiten if FORTRAN. However ASK is rewriting their system in INGRES (ABF/4GL ? ). The current system is robust so I doubt whether existing clients will jump to the new platform. My guess is a lot of current ASK clients will wait for a while after the ASK product is released to evaluate the performance of the INGRES based product before committing. to the new system. (Please note this is not my employers opinion just a practical evaluation. It does not reflect on ASK's or INGRES Corpn's abilities.) INGRES has it's share of pitfalls as I am sure the developers at ASK have been discovering. Sanjay (Not my usual disclaimer : The opinions above are solely my own and are not those of Stanford University or my employer.)