Progress Software

Progress Software Corporation
Formerly called
 Data Language Corporation
Public
Traded as NASDAQ: PRGS
Industry Computer software
Founded 1981
Headquarters Bedford, Massachusetts, U.S.
Key people
  • Phil Pead (President & CEO)
  • Chris Perkins (CFO/CTO)
  • John Goodson (CPO)
  • Karen Padir (President, Application Development & Deployment)
  • Jerry Rulli (President, OpenEdge)
  • Michael Benedict (President, Data Integration)
Revenue $334.0 million (2013)[1]
$63.7 million (2013)[1]
$74.9 million (2013)[1]
Number of employees
 942[2]
Website www.progress.com

Progress Software Corporation is a global software company. The Progress portfolio includes solutions for enterprise integration, data interoperability and application development, including Software as a Service (SaaS) enablement and delivery.[3] Progress's headquarters are in Bedford, Massachusetts.

Progress products and technology are used at over 60,000 organizations in 140 countries including 90% of the Fortune 500. Progress technology provides the infrastructure for applications as diverse as ERP and financial trading, across industries as diverse as retail (Smartstores), manufacturing, telecommunications, financial services, and government. Its best known product is the OpenEdge ABL (formerly known as Progress 4GL), which was developed in the early 1980s.[4]

The company is composed of the following business units: Application Development & Deployment, OpenEdge, and Data Integration.

History

Progress Software was co-founded under the name Data Language Corporation by several MIT graduates, including Joseph W. Alsop, in 1981.[5] The company was renamed in 1987.

In October 2002 Progress Software acquired Boston based eXcelon Corporation (NASDAQ: EXLN, formerly Object Design, NASDAQ: ODIS) for approximately US$24 Million. eXcelon also created an XML IDE, Stylus Studio, which is now marketed by Progress Software.

In December 2003 Progress Software acquired DataDirect Technologies Ltd. for $88 million. DataDirect is a software provider of standards-based data access components for software developers.[6]

In 2005 Progress acquired Apama and entered the Complex Event Processing Space.

In January 2006 Progress Software acquired Mountain View-based Actional Corporation, which itself was the merger between Actional Corporation and WestBridge Technologies (an XML Security company). Actional focuses on providing enterprise-class SOA Management, Security, and run-time Governance solutions that cross vendor and protocol boundaries, based upon open standards.[7]

In March 2006 Progress Software acquired Neon Systems (NASDAQ: NEON), which offers a set of capabilities for companies seeking to modernize existing 3270 applications.[8][9]

During the early-2000s, SonicMQ became a popular message broker made by Progress Software. It implements the Java Message Service 1.1 API. The genesis of the term Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) originated in Progress Software UK by Mark Gilliland who was looking for a better means to articulate capabilities of the newly launched SonicXQ product. 1999-2001, Gilliland worked extensively on the launch and adoption of Progress's ASP (application service provider) program (ASP being the predecessor to SaaS) and conceived the term Application Service Bus (ASB), as a means to represent to a non-technical business audience how SonicXQ presented a unique business integration layer in an application architecture to massively reduce complexity and cost. Gilliland's notion was that the term 'Bus,' being the fast communication layer in computer hardware architecture was analogous with the SonicXQ capabilities; further he felt the term more marketable generally. Gilliland reviewed his idea with Sonic marketing director Danny Goodall, they concluded 'Enterprise' over 'Application' and Goodall shared the thinking with US management. The idea was taken up by Greg O'Connor, Bill Cullen and Gordon Van Huizen of the Progress Sonic team, and subsequently adopted by IT analyst firm Gartner to become an industry accepted term.

In June 2008 Progress Software acquired Xcalia, a data integration company, and Mindreef, which developed SOAPscope products. In September 2008, Progress acquired IONA Technologies. IONA brought three product lines into the fold: FUSE (open source SOA), Artix (commercially-licensed SOA), and Orbix (CORBA infrastructure).

In early 2009, Richard D. Reidy succeeded Joseph Alsop as President and Chief Executive Officer. In August 2011 it was announced he would step down when a successor is named.[10]

In 2010, Progress Software acquired the Santa Clara-based Savvion Inc., a provider of Business Process Management technology. Later that year, Progress announced the introduction of its Responsive Process Management (RPM) suite, including its Progress Control Tower.

In April 2011 Progress Software sold their SWIFT integration product "ADS" (formally Iona's "Artix Data Services") to C24 Technologies Ltd (UK). The product was re-branded to its former name "Integration Objects".

In December 2011, Jay Bhatt (erstwhile SVP of Autodesk, Inc.) joined Progress Software as the new President & CEO.

In April 2012, Progress announced strategy shift to become a much more narrowly focused, specialist vendor, looking to sell or decommission most of their existing products.[11][12]

In June 2012, the company sold its subsidiary FuseSource, which was spun out from Progress in October 2010, to Red Hat.[13] In October 2012, Progress Software sold the brands Sonic, Savvion, Actional and DataXtend (DXSI) to Trilogy which created the company Aurea Software.[14] The company also announced that Jay Bhatt planned to step down from the positions and as a director, effective December 7.

In June 2013, Progress Software acquired Rollbase Inc., a platform as a service (PaaS) for rapid development of cloud business applications.[15] Rollbase was recognized by Gartner as a "2013 Cool Vendor in PaaS".[16]

In June 2013, Software AG acquired Apama activities from Progress Software.

In June 2014, Progress Software announced that it had acquired Cincinnati-based Modulus, a company providing a Node.js and MongoDB cloud platform.[17]

In December 2014, Progress Software completed the acquisition of Telerik, a leading provider of application development tools.[18][19]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "PROGRESS SOFTWARE CORP /MA - 10-K - 20140129 - INCOME_STATEMENT". EDGAR Online. January 29, 2014. Retrieved 3 September 2014.
  2. ↑ "Progress Software Corporation". InsideView. Retrieved 3 September 2014.
  3. ↑ "Progress Software Corporation News". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 September 2014.
  4. ↑ "Progress Software Corporation Overview." Xensys Progress Software Library. Retrieved 2010-09-15.
  5. ↑ "MIT-Related Companies with 10,000 Employees or More". Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Archived from the original on March 23, 2007. Retrieved 2007-04-02.
  6. ↑ "SEC Form 8-K: Progress Software Corporation". United States Securities and Exchange Commission. December 5, 2003.
  7. ↑ Gardner, W. David (2006-01-20). "Progress Software acquires Actional for US$32 million". itnews.com.au. Retrieved 2007-04-02.
  8. ↑ "Progress Software Acquires NEON Systems". March 23, 2006.
  9. ↑ "Progress Software Corporation to Acquire NEON Systems Creating Unparalleled Data Connectivity Leader". Finanzen.net. December 20, 2005. Retrieved 3 September 2014.
  10. ↑ Huang, Gregory T. (August 1, 2011). "Progress Software Chief Richard Reidy Stepping Down; Successor To Be Named". Xconomy. Retrieved 3 September 2014.
  11. ↑ http://www.progress.com/en/inthenews/progress-announces-s-58698.html
  12. ↑ http://blogs.forrester.com/john_r_rymer/12-04-29-progress_software_lowers_its_sights
  13. ↑ Morgan, Timothy Prickett (28 June 2012). "Red Hat snaps up open source SOAer FuseSource". The Register. Retrieved 3 September 2014.
  14. ↑ http://www.progress.com/en/inthenews/progress-software-an-63599.html
  15. ↑ "Progress Software buys a new front-end for its PaaS play". June 12, 2013.
  16. ↑ "Rollbase Named 2013 "Cool Vendor in PaaS" by Gartner". April 29, 2013.
  17. ↑ http://investors.progress.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=853083
  18. ↑ http://investors.progress.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=885580
  19. ↑ "Progress Software Buys Telerik for $262.5M As Buying Spree Continues". October 22, 2014.

External links