Software AG, one of the world's oldest software companies, and one that has recently celebrated its 40th birthday, has quietly progressed from its original mainframe/database focus to become the second largest software company in Germany.
Software AG is well on its way to becoming the second largest software vendor in Europe behind SAP.
Paul Booth, MD, Global Research Partners
Subsequently, with its very recent acquisition of IDS Scheer AG, Germany's third largest software company, it is well on its way to becoming the second largest software vendor in Europe behind SAP. In doing so, it will establish itself as the only complete provider of business process management (BPM) software through one integrated platform. This is no mean feat, as Europe, and Germany specifically, are still not recognised for their software development prowess, despite SAP dominating the ERP market globally and Software AG firmly and successfully establishing itself in its particular niche.
Software AG was established in 1969 upon the concept of providing a versatile database management system, Adabas (adaptable database system), which was subsequently launched in 1971. This was followed by the launch of Natural, a 4GL application development environment later that decade. Although originally developed for mainframe environments, Adabas and Natural were extended to cover the DEC/VAX environments in the 1980s. In 1999, Software AG was listed on the Frankfurt stock exchange, in what was at that time the largest-ever software industry IPO.
Although several products emanated from the company during its early years, it was its subsequent focus on middleware, and services-orientated architecture (SOA) in particular, during the first few years of the new millennium, followed by its acquisition of WebMethods in 2007, that significantly and positively impacted the growth of Software AG and its predominance in this very important sector of the market. This position was then reinforced by its acquisition of IDS Scheer, a global provider of infrastructure software and BPM software, in the latter half of last year, which created a combined company that it likely to have annual revenue this year in excess of EUR1 billion and a strong customer base of over 10 000 users.
Many organisations are providing some of the components of a complete BPM solution; however, to date, there hasn't been a fully integrated solution or a complete solution from a single vendor available, until now. Software AG has a unique opportunity to establish itself as the leader in this respect and claim this area of the market as its own! The first manifestations of this integration will be announced at CeBIT next month and will, without a doubt, make many of its competitors reassess their activities and plans in this area.
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