Responding to Sun Microsystems Inc's announcement last month (August 1999) that it is to acquire enterprise distributed applications pioneer, Forte Software, Sun Microsystems SA managing director Christopher de Beyer says Sun is adding further key elements for network computing.
"Although the deal, valued at some $540 million, is still subject to regulatory approval, as with the AOL and Netscape alliance it's a further strong endorsement of Sun's vision. For any organisation considering dot.comming their business, it's confirmation that Sun has the most comprehensive set of building blocks available today in the industry."
De Beyer says the intention for Forte to operate as an independent unit shows that Sun is continuing with its philosophy to provide customer choice and open standards. "As with the Sun/Netscape Alliance, Forte's .com products will run on competitive hardware and operating systems, such as HP, Microsoft and IBM."
Forte's strengths in scalable distributed application development and enterprise application integration complement Sun's Java platform and other network computing technologies, as well as the iPlanet products from the Sun/Netscape Alliance to provide a comprehensive set of solutions under a single support contract. Forte Software products support Sun's dot-com
architecture, leveraging customers' existing investments and ensuring that new applications are scalable, accessible, and responsive.
"In addition, the financial strength that Sun brings to Forte should make their current customer set feel certain that they have in their software product a very secure investment going forward," adds De Beyer.
In the announcement, both companies said they had agreed to a stock-for-stock merger that is intended to be accounted for as a pooling of interests. Under terms of the agreement, each share of Forte Common Stock will be converted into 0.3 shares of Sun Common Stock. Based on Sun's closing price on August 20,1999, the merger would be valued at approximately $540.0 million, or about $22.275 per Forte share, on a fully diluted basis. The merger is expected to be completed during Sun's second quarter of fiscal 2000, which ends December 31, 1999, subject to governmental approvals, Forte shareholder approval and customary closing conditions. Following completion of the merger, Forte will operate under its own name as a subsidiary of Sun.
"Companies across the globe are dot-comming their businesses at an incredible pace -- by extending legacy applications to run across the Internet and by creating new applications to run across all platforms,'' said Ed Zander, President and Chief Operating Officer of Sun Microsystems, Inc. "We welcome Forte's team, solutions and expertise to our line of Internet development and deployment products."
Founded in 1991, Forte Software is a market leader in the development and integration of scalable enterprise-class distributed applications. Forte's Java(TM) technology and C++ development tools and Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) environment greatly simplify the
creation, extension, and delivery of scalable application environments.
"I believe the best technologies and the most experienced talent for building end-to-end enterprise solutions are coming together within one organisation," said Marty Sprinzen, President and Chief Executive Officer of Forte Software, Inc. "We look forward to joining the company that has defined the dot-com architecture and bringing our heritage in large scale distributed systems to Sun's overall offering."
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Sun Microsystems, Inc
Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision, "The Network Is The Computer(TM),'' has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SUNW) to its position as a leading provider of high quality hardware, software and services for establishing enterprise-wide intranets and expanding the power of the Internet. With more than $11.5 billion in annual revenues, Sun can be found in more than 150 countries and on the WorldWide Web at http://www.sun.com.