Ardent Software: Will Informix Merger Affect their Success

Ardent Software, formerly known as VMARK Software, was founded in the mid-1980's to develop and market extended relational database systems. The product originally ran on UNIX operating systems, and soon the systems were also licensed for use as an embedded part of business applications.

In February 1998, Ardent merged with Unidata Inc., a marketer and developer of relational databases, object databases and software tools. In addition, Ardent entered the data warehousing market in 1996 with the initial release of DataStage, an extract/transform/load tool. The vendor has also acquired a number of other software vendors in recent years, and has attempted to integrate the purchased technologies into their existing DataStage product. The tool now offers metadata management and data quality management, which according to the vendor will "simplify integration of multiple data sources and business intelligence tools".

The Ardent product is a suite that contains:

* Extract/Transform/Load capabilities in the form of DataStage 3.6. This product has made Ardent one of the top three ETL vendors.

* Metadata management technology acquired with the purchase of Dovetail Software. This is a proprietary meta model, Ardent promises an XML-compliant repository in a future release.

* Data quality technologies acquired with the purchase of Prism Solutions. Prism had previously purchased QDB Solutions, which created QDB/Analyze, a tool for complex data cleansing.

* Improved mainframe functionality, also acquired with the purchase of Prism Solutions. Prism's mainframe based ETL tool provides Ardent with mainframe job scheduling and improved access to legacy data sources.

The most recent release is known as DataStage XE and includes all the features of DataStage 3.6 and the addition of support for unstructured data (i.e., XML). This was announced as the "first component of Ardent's newly announced Enterprise Information Infrastructure (EII) initiative by addressing the structured data domain."

According to Mikael Wipperfeld, Vice President of data warehouse marketing at Ardent, "Customers are looking for a complete set of information infrastructure capabilities for their business intelligence and analytical applications which will enable them to adapt their data-to-information processes as their environments change."

In the second phase of this effort, Ardent intends to deliver Web-enabled access to the business and technical metadata. Access to unstructured datasources such as spreadsheets, presentations, and text files will also be added. In the third phase, Ardent plans to deliver the foundation for an enterprise portal by utilizing an integration layer that unifies related content and enables personalization.

The latest development was the announcement on December 1, 1999 that Ardent Software was to be acquired by Informix, a major relational and object database vendor. The transaction was completed on March 1, 2000. Under terms of the transaction, Ardent stockholders will receive 3.5 shares of Informix common stock for each share of Ardent stock. The ramifications of this development are still uncertain, as Ardent was highly successful in 1999, and Informix is still rebounding from near-death (their stock had plummeted to as low as $6 per share within the last 52 weeks, and sales of their core database products were poor). How successful the marriage of the two companies will be remains to be seen.

Another complicating factor is the lawsuit which IBM has filed against Informix for patent infringement. Many of the six patents referred to in the suit are old, one dating back to 1981, and Informix's position is that the suit is frivolous. However, defending against the suit will take cycles away from Informix executives who could better spend their time on Ardent software and personnel.

Ardent's stated strategy before the announcement of the Informix acquisition was in the area of an "enterprise application architecture". As explained above, this was supposed to build a framework that would allow access to structured (i.e., relational database tables), and unstructured (i.e., XML or text files), in a seamless manner to allow data access and integration. Ardent was well positioned to succeed in this direction given its integration of the acquired data cleansing, mainframe data access, and metadata management tools.

After the announcement of the Informix acquisition, Ardent added a strategic move towards "web analytics". This makes some sense given Informix's analytic application strengths provided by its acquisition of Cloudscape, which brought a 100% pure-Java database management system into the mix, as well as web analytics combined in the i.Informix web-enabling product. The key will be a successful integration of the products, clear product focus, and the ability to prevent employee attrition.

Ardent commented that in addition, the acquisition by Informix provides it with access to Informix's worldwide sales and support staffs and increased global reach. Ardent also gets to leverage Informix's installed base, which is known to be extremely loyal.

Ardent has been consistently successful in the extract/transform/load market, especially since users moved away from scripted data movement tools to a graphical user interface. Their market penetration has been consistently higher from period to period, and revenues have increased steadily. The DataStage product has been superior to many of its competitors due to advanced data cleansing capabilities and superior mainframe data access. The addition of a metadata management layer was key to staying ahead of the competition.

Ardent has also been very financially successful, and Informix has returned to consistent profitability over the last 8 quarters.