Software AG

Founded in 1969, Software AG is an enterprise software company with over 10,000 enterprise customers in over 70 countries. The company is the second largest software vendor in Germany, and the seventh largest in Europe.[4] Software AG is traded on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under the symbol “SOW” and part of the technology index TecDAX.[5]

Software AG
Aktiengesellschaft
Traded asFWB: SOW
ISINDE0003304002 
IndustryComputer software
Founded1969 (1969)
FounderPeter Schnell, Peter Pagé 
HeadquartersDarmstadt, Germany
Key people
Sanjay Brahmawar (CEO and chairman of the management board), Andreas Bereczky (Chairman of the supervisory board)
ProductsDigital Transformation & Internet of Things software and consulting including ARIS, webMethods, Adabas & Natural, NaturalONE, Apama, Cumulocity, Zementis, Alfabet, Mashzone Nextgen, CONNX, and Terracotta
Revenue€865 million (2018)[1]
€195.0 million (2018)[2]
Number of employees
4,763 (FTE, 2018)[3]
Websitewww.softwareag.com

History

The company was founded in 1969 by six young employees at the consulting firm AIV (Institut für Angewandte Informationsverarbeitung). One of the founders was the mathematician Peter Schnell, who later became chairman of the board for many years. ADABAS was launched in 1971 as a high performance transactional database management system. In 1979, Natural, a 4GL application development English-like language, that was mainly developed by Peter Pagé, was launched. The company continued to open offices and subsidiaries in North America (1971), Japan (1974), UK (1977), France (1983), Spain (1984), Switzerland, Austria, Belgium and Saudi Arabia (1985). By 1987, Software AG had around 500 employees, 12 subsidiaries in Europe and offices in more than 50 countries. In 1999, Software AG was listed on Frankfurt Stock Exchange and soon after the company released Tamino Information Server and Tamino XML Server.[6]

In January 2005, Software AG acquired Sabratec Ltd, a privately held legacy integration vendor headquartered in Israel.[7] This was followed by the acquisition of its Israeli distributor SPL software in March 2007[8] and the application modernization business of another Israeli company, Jacada in December 2007,[9] which formed the basis for its research and development center in Israel.

The company launched Centrasite SOA Governance platform in 2006 and with the $546M acquisition of U.S. rival webMethods in 2007 Software AG became one of the leaders in enterprise service bus, business process management and service-oriented architecture (SOA) product space.[10]

In July 2009, Software AG announced a takeover offer for the Germany-based company IDS Scheer AG. Since February 2010, IDS Scheer is part of the Software AG Group.[11] In October 2010, the company acquired New Jersey based Data Foundations, a leading master data management provider.[12]

In May 2011, Software AG acquired Terracotta, Inc. and Metismo Ltd. Terracotta Inc is a leader in the field of in-memory technology for high-performance applications and cloud services. Especially the middleware platform WebMethods should benefit from this acquisition.[13] Metismo Ltd. has an extremely flexible and versatile platform for the development of device-independent mobile applications. It enables design and development of applications and the automatic transformation in the different formats of mobile devices.[14]

In April 2012, Software AG announced buying the British technology provider my-Channels. With My-Channels, Software AG gained in-house access to universal messaging technology that allowed the company to transfer their data streams quickly and safely to the cloud and mobile applications.[15]

In March 2013, Software AG invested in Berlin-based company metaquark, which is specialized in mobile solutions. The aim is to jointly develop the webMethods Mobile Suite of Software AG. This allowed the company to access especially to the innovative know-how of metaquark.[16]

In April 2013, Software AG bought the US cloud platform provider LongJump. The Platform as a Service offers a range of ready-made modules and templates for building and running business applications in the public or private cloud settings.[17]

On June 13, 2013, Software AG acquired alfabet AG. Alfabet is a leading software provider in the areas of "enterprise architecture" and "IT Portfolio Management" focusing on the planning and optimization of IT landscapes.[18]

On June 13, 2013 Software AG announced that it has purchased the Apama Complex Event Processing Platform of Progress Software. The platform provides an environment for the design and operation of CEP applications providing tools and graphical analysis and test capabilities for analysts, developers and administrators.[19]

Software AG acquired JackBe in August 2013 to serve as the foundation for its Intelligent Business Operations Platform, which provides analytics and decision management for real-time applications.[20]

In December 2013, Software AG invested in big data analytics company Datameer,[21][22] which offers self-service Big Data Analytics and "to follow cutting edge technology trends".[23]

On March 27, 2017 Software AG announced the acquisition of Cumulocity GmbH (“Cumulocity”), based in Düsseldorf, Germany.[24]

On June 12, 2018 Software AG acquired the Belgian self-service analytics company, TrendMiner NV. TrendMiner specializes in visual data analytics for the manufacturing and process industry and will complement Software AG’s Cumulocity Internet of Things (IoT) and Industry 4.0 product portfolio.[25]

Corruption Allegations

In July 2017 allegations emerged in South Africa that Software AG made "kickback" payments by entering into questionable commission agreements with a Gupta-controlled company in the hope of securing lucrative state contracts.[26] "Software AG [launched] an internal investigation after a media report alleged it had paid kickbacks as part of a wide-ranging South African scandal..."[27]

Products

Software AG is a business infrastructure software provider with products in various technologies like DBMS, application modernization, SOA, BPMS and ESB.[28] Below are a few of their products on the market.

  • ADABAS – a high performance transactional database management system
  • Alfabet – IT Planning, Portfolio Management, and Enterprise Architecture Software
  • Apama – Platform for streaming analytics and intelligent automated action on fast-moving big data. Combines event processing, messaging, in-memory data management and visualization.
  • ARIS – acquired business process analysis platform. A free version is available as ARIS Express.
  • Centrasite – a flagship SOA governance application which provides UDDI as well as governance
  • CONNX - Data Access, Data Movement (ETL), Streaming Analytics
  • Cumulocity – an Internet of Things (IoT) platform that provides services for connectivity for networked digital devices and sensors
  • Natural – a 4GL application development English-like programming language
  • NaturalONE - Eclipse™-based Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for Natural applications
  • Presto – Self-service, real-time data visualization and exploration tool combines data from different applications to create mashups, which can be displayed on any device.
  • Tamino Information Server – Information server based on XML for the storage, management and transfer of structured and unstructured data[29], now called webMethods Tamino
  • Terracotta – Company behind opensource Ehcache. Big memory, Quartz scheduler are their primary products. My-Channel's Nirvana messaging is now offered as Terracotta Universal Messaging.
  • webMethods – an ESB, API Management, BPMS, SOA enablement, MDM and B2B integration
  • Cumulocity IoT - an IoT product, providing hardware, Cloud and Edge Services as well as platforms adaptable to the Software AG Cloud

Communities

Software AG uses two main communities as a platform to interact with their customers and as a chance for customers to exchange their experiences with Software AG products. These communities are the ARIS Community,[30] for the user group around ARIS, and the TECHcommunity,[31] for user groups of the other products.

University Relations Program

Software AG's University Relations Program is dedicated to build ties within academia and the educational sector in general.[32] Beside diverse events, it offers students and faculty free software[33] in an effort to built an academic user group.

References
  1. "2018 Annual Report" (PDF). 2019. Retrieved June 27, 2019.
  2. "2018 Annual Report" (PDF). 2019. Retrieved June 27, 2019.
  3. "2018 Annual Report" (PDF). 2019. Retrieved June 27, 2019.
  4. "European software vendors ranking 2014". TRUFFLE CAPITAL. Retrieved 22 May 2015.
  5. "Software AG O.N. (Frankfurt) Stock Price - SOW". ADVFN. 2018. Retrieved May 7, 2018.
  6. "Software AG O.N. (Frankfurt) Stock Price - SOW". ADVFN. 2018. Retrieved May 7, 2018.
  7. "Software AG to Acquire Legacy Integration Technology Company Sabratec Ltd". Globes. 9 January 2005.
  8. "Software AG: US will be our top market in future". Jerusalem Post. 2012-10-25.
  9. "Jacada Announces Sale of its Application Modernization Business to Software AG for $26 Million". Reuters (Press Release). December 20, 2007. Archived from the original on November 14, 2012.
  10. "Company History - Software AG". Software AG.
  11. "The domination and profit transfer agreement between Software AG and IDS Scheer AG now registered". Software AG.
  12. Schweizer, Kristen (October 26, 2010). "Software AG Raises Forecast on Profit Gain, IDS Scheer Purchase". Bloomberg. Retrieved August 13, 2016.
  13. "Terracotta-Übernahme: Software AG freut sich über Cloud-Technologie".
  14. "IT-Zukauf: Software AG übernimmt Metismo".
  15. "my-Channels: Software AG übernimmt britischen Messaging-Spezialisten". computerwoche.de.
  16. Schindler, Martin (27 March 2013). "Software AG investiert in mobiles Startup" [Software AG invests in mobile startup] (in German). silicon.de.
  17. Developer, heise. "Software AG kauft PaaS-Firma LongJump". heise.de.
  18. "Software AG übernimmt alfabet". crn.de.
  19. Developer, heise. "Software AG kauft Apama".
  20. "Software AG's Acquisition of JackBe Recognized as Strategic M&A Deal of the Year". Reuters. April 30, 2014. Archived from the original on May 17, 2014.
  21. "Datameer Secures $19 Million to Meet Global Demand for Self-Service Big Data Analytics for Hadoop".
  22. "Datameer Raises $19M As Market For Hadoop And Big Data Analytics Hits An Inflection Point".
  23. "Investor Newsletter #4/2013" (PDF). Software AG. December 2013. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 7, 2014. Retrieved August 13, 2016.
  24. "Software AG Press Releases". www.softwareag.com. Retrieved 2018-03-19.
  25. "Software AG acquires Trendminer to expand IoT portfolio through time-series data used in AI algorithms". Software AG. 2018-06-12. Retrieved 2019-03-21.
  26. "#GuptaLeaks: Another software giant implicated in 'kickback' payments". News24. 2017. Retrieved May 7, 2018.
  27. "Germany's Software AG starts probe into South Africa kickback reports". Reuters. 2017-07-25. Retrieved 2019-03-21.
  28. "Webmethods certified ESB developer" (pdf). softwareag.com.
  29. "Tamino 10.1". IBM.
  30. "University Relations". ARIS BPM Community. Retrieved 2019-03-21.
  31. "University Relations". Software AG TECHcommunity. Retrieved 2019-03-21.
  32. "Software University Development, Offer Management Software". Software AG. Retrieved 2019-03-21.
  33. "University Relations Program; Individual licenses: Order Form from Software AG". Software AG. Retrieved 2019-03-21.
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