Altran Praxis (formerly known as Praxis High Integrity Systems and Praxis Critical Systems) is a British software house that specialises in critical systems.[1] They are based in Manvers Street, Bath, England, close to Bath Spa railway station, and also have offices in London, Loughborough, Paris, Sophia Antipolis, and Bangalore.
The company Praxis Systems Limited was founded by Martyn Thomas and David Bean in 1983. It was incorporated on June 1, 1983 and commenced business on July 1, 1983. On June 28, 1985 it became a Public limited company Praxis Systems plc. Until 1988 Praxis was owned almost entirely by its staff. In 1988 Praxis obtained venture capital finance in order to provide funds for future acquisitions and working capital for continued growth. On November 27, 1992 Praxis was acquired by Deloitte Consulting (then known as Touche Ross), an international firm of accountants and management consultants. The critical systems part of the company was acquired by the Altran Group in 1997. In 2004, Praxis Critical Systems and HIS Consulting merged to form Praxis High Integrity Systems. In January 2010, the company was merged with SC2 by Altran to form Altran Praxis.
A distinguishing feature of the company is its extensive use of formal methods such as the Z notation and the SPARK toolset (acquired through the takeover of the developers Program Validation Limited in 1994) in its approach to improving the reliability of software engineering.[2] A major project using Z has been an enhancement for the United Kingdom's National Air Traffic Services (NATS).[3][4]