448:
David
Chapman, a veteran IBM and Data General executive, started an aggressive campaign to acquire technology from other companies. The reason for bringing in Chapman was that the company had gotten hung up on the open architecture and relational issues. In other words, a company with an unparalleled record of outpositioning competition every two years, for sixteen years, including IBM, allowed itself to get outpositioned by IBM and others, with the help of E.F. Codd and C.J. Date.
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marketing problem and technical problem, and remarkably, they did. Technically, it only required the modification of one instruction to get IDMS running on a 4300. The solution to the company's revenue problem turned out to be its new
Integrated Data Dictionary. By moving very fast, the company used it to put IBM on the defensive and made its numbers, no small accomplishment. It then went from winning one out five competitions to winning four out five and this fueled its growth.
239:) Auditing including the first EDP Auditors User, special support to give auditors independence of data processing which was very important to them. What was remarkable is that many corporations licensed essentially identical products. This led to serendipitous prosperity for Cullinane. As EDP auditors developed knowledge about business systems and computers, they could invariably produce reports faster than slower-moving, internal IT departments. As a result, MIS (
177:) departments (at that time called Data Processing departments) of major enterprises, particularly banks, to identify internally developed applications that he felt had potential to be productized and licensed to others. However, it proved difficult to sell these applications because most weren't generalized and supportable systems. As a result, the company decided to develop a source code management system, called
417:, but never delivered. ICMS was unveiled in 1983 as part of a splashy 20+ city closed circuit TV broadcast that focused on IDMS/R and fueled the market for Cullinet for the next two years, but it was obvious that it was getting harder to maintain its unbroken string of quarters with sales and earnings in excess of 50%.
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system. When it was first released, it was reported that IBM challenged
Cullinane to prove that the code had not violated copyright. This suspicion was due to the fact that many internal CICS codes begin with the initials "RH". Many IDMS-DC modules also begin with "RH" after it two authors, Nick Rini
323:
machines. ICL continued development of the software independently of
Cullinane, selling the originally ported product under the name IDMS and an enhanced version as IDMSX. In this form, it was used by many large UK and international users — examples being the Pay-As-You-Earn system operated by Inland
459:
In 1988, John
Cullinane returned to Cullinet, fired Chapman and tried to salvage the company. By repositioning the company's product line with a new product called Enterprise Generator, he solved the open architecture problem and the company was able to return to profitability by the fourth quarter,
383:
series. Its salesmen told all mutual clients that IDMS didn't run on the 4300 series and that all IBM software of the future would be built with IMS/DL1. This caused a major problem as every IDMS customer went ballistic and every prospect went on hold. The company only had three months to solve this
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later in 1983) and completely rewrote them using IDMS. They also acquired an MRP system from Rath & Strong and completely rewrote it using IDMS. Thus, Cullinet had a suite of integrated financial and manufacturing systems (called CIMS Cullinet
Integrated Manufacturing System), the first on-line
271:, and Bill Curtis had supposedly gotten the rights to convert the system to run on IBM equipment. The decision was made in early 1973 — primarily by John Cullinane, Jim Baker and Tom Meurer — to bet the company on the effort. Several executives joined the effort over the next three years, including
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In 1983 John
Cullinane, after 25 years in the software business, handed over the helm of Cullinet to Bob Goldman. Eventually the company ran into trouble and Cullinane brought in a recent acquaintance, David Chapman, as CEO of the company. At the time, Cullinet had $ 50 million in cash reserves.
351:
in 1983, partly because John
Cullinane wanted to distance his name from the personal connection to the business when he turned the company over to Bob Goldman, and also in a nod to the importance of computer networking (as evidenced by the company's simultaneous acquisition of Computer Pictures,
356:
purchased some shares from John
Cullinane in 1977, less than a year before the company was to go public. It was to be the early foundation on which their Greylock's software technology investment prowess rested. It was Greylock’s first investment in a software company.
401:. The company had become a software powerhouse. Eventually, it acquired a small Boston-based company called Computer Pictures whose graphics-focused decision support system TrendSpotter had already been integrated with IDMS and was very successful. This team developed
387:
Beginning in 1979, in an attempt to promote less dependence on the database sales alone, Cullinane fully integrated financial and manufacturing applications with IDMS and decision support systems, another first. The company acquired financial applications from
275:, Robert Goldman, Jon Nackerud, Ron McKinney, William Casey, Bob Davis, Bill Linn, and Ray Nawara. IDMS was to be a great bet for the company as it became the leader among many capable and popular products of the mainframe era. It competed with
471:
In 1989, Wang bought the company for $ 330 million in stock. It was a good deal for investors, which was reflected in the fact that shares of CA increased in value at least tenfold during the 1990s. It was a good deal for John
Cullinane, too.
412:
Goldengate was a part of Cullinet's flawed ICMS (Information Center Management System). The promise of ICMS was the ability to move data between the mainframe and PC desktop. Apple Computer was supposed to do the same for the
455:
line of computers. In the process, Cullinet acquired some very questionable VAX companies, but one had an outstanding relational DBMS. By then it was too late — the company's $ 50 million of cash had been spent.
615:-like language and was successful because it competed against CICS, which tended to be used mainly by COBOL programmers. ADS/O was later ported to run directly in CICS and was adopted by nearly 1,500 companies.
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system. Eswaron's company Esvel was acquired by Cullinet in July 1987 and its main product re-launched as IDMS/R. The 4GL was dropped in favour of one developed by a Cancor, a Canadian company based in
352:
whose microcomputer-based desktop system linked to IDMS data). Joe McNay, a board member, was particularly important regarding the company's IPO, the first ever in the software products industry.
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ystem) required the use of magnetic tape devices, and was not competitive with the other, disk-based products. Although the company eventually responded with a disk-based version, called
809:
235:
which was nothing more than a second name for the same product with a collection of predefined reports, but more importantly, special services aimed at the new discipline of EDP (
611:
IDMS-DC help spawn a fourth generation (4GL) programming system called ADS/Online (Application Development System). The original name of the product was "AIDS". ADS/Online was a
420:
The company should have developed PC based IDMS development tools, instead. Ironically, it had the technology under development which was later to become the foundation of
834:
814:
787:, University of Minnesota. Discusses the firm's development and marketing of a number of new software products, including Culprit, Library Update System, EDP Auditor, and
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users, which was at that time a new concept in an era when enterprises only used internally developed applications or the software that came bundled with the hardware.
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824:
542:. John Cullinane acquired the rights to market IDMS in the early 1970s. IDMS legacy systems are still being run today. Only a few customers have migrated to IDMS/R.
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Goldengate was built pre-Windows, which was expensive for Cullinet because of all the permutations and combinations of PC hardware and memory configurations.
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Cullinane's public offering was of note as it was the first successful offering of a pure software products company ever and the first software company
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371:. Cullinane Database Systems, Inc., went public in 1978. On April 27, 1982 the company became the first computer software firm to be listed on the
757:
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673:
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In 1986-87, Chapman attempted to move the company to the more and more powerful minicomputers such as Digital Equipment Corporation's
428:. In fairness, many failures mark the landscape in that space and era including the Ovation product introduced with great fanfare by
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312:
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Revenue and a system for Barclays Bank in South Africa. Many of these systems are still running in 2010 on Fujitsu equipment.
240:
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John Cullinane mentored a series of future entrepreneurs and software industry executives. One of the early executives was
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ever took public. Cullinet was also the first software company to have a billion dollar valuation, and the first to do a
220:, developed in-house by Gil Curtis and Anna Marie Thron, who had built the PHI payroll system. The product competed with
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for use with the database engine. The components were all named after planets. This product was designed to run on the
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database management system. Prior to becoming a public company in 1978, the company's name was changed to
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A port of ADS/Online to the batch mainframe environment. It was not well received by Cullinet's customers.
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368:
255:, Naomi O. Seligman, to consider taking over development of a Honeywell database management system called
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335:, Inc.. Another was Robert Goldman who became the CEO of several public software companies including
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This was an evolution of IDMS in approximately 1984 involving the addition of relational features.
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479:(formerly CA, Inc. and Computer Associates International, Inc.) still marketed and supported the
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in a race with Lotus's Symphony suite attempting to create the early office suites dominated by
425:
353:
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328:
272:
243:) departments would feel compelled to buy the Culprit version for their own use — to compete.
225:
185:'s products (UCC-1 tape management system, etc.). The first version of PLUS (which stood for
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Dick Aaron (November 13, 1984). "GoldenGate: Cullinet's First Software Package for Micros".
339:. Jon Nackerud was a co-founder of Relational Technology, Inc., formed to commercialize the
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28:
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ccess, a common name for disks at the time) they did not become successful in this market.
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The company struggled with financial stability until it branded a variation of Culprit,
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Software Memories»Blog Archive » Prerelational DBMS vendors — a quick overview
696:(New York: Association for Computing Machinery and Morgan & Claypool, 2014) at
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As the company prospered in the early 1970s, it was approached by a consultant to
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Smarter Than Their Machines: Oral Histories of Pioneers in Interactive Computing
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database driven applications, and was a major competitor in what is now called
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This was a completely separate database engine developed in California by Dr.
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Index. However, two quarters after the company went public IBM introduced its
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The company was started by John Cullinane and Larry English in 1968 as
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228:, but was perceived as a late entry in the report writer category.
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Charles Babbage InstiThe company was originally started bytute
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Rather than write its own products, Cullinane approached IT (
315:(ICL), whose developers ported the software to run on their
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The first breakthrough product was a report writer named
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and later, the first to become a component stock of the
674:"Computer Associates and Cullinet Software Are Merging"
392:("M&D"), a financial software company (acquired by
145:. Cullinet was headquartered at 400 Blue Hill Drive in
98:
88:
80:
65:
57:
42:
34:
24:
166:. Their idea was to sell pre-packaged software to
460:which made it possible to negotiate a deal with
181:, that competed with Pansophic's (Panvalet) and
810:Defunct software companies of the United States
734:
732:
605:and Don Heitzmann, both employees of Cullinane.
319:mainframes, and subsequently also on the older
639:"GoldenGate: Cullinet's PC Software Package".
758:"Cullinet Founder Back As Chairman and Chief"
8:
19:
259:(IDS) that had been modified to operate on
781:Oral history interview with John Cullinane
709:Oral history interview with John Cullinane
574:project. The company had also developed a
18:
835:Software companies disestablished in 1989
815:Software companies based in Massachusetts
600:A teleprocessing system similar to IBM's
311:. In 1976, the source code was sold to
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830:Software companies established in 1968
825:American companies established in 1968
347:The company changed its name again to
141:. In 1989, the company was bought by
7:
745:. February 15, 1988. pp. 12–13.
295:, Computer Corporation of America's
739:"Can Cullinet Bring Back Success".
594:which was acquired in January 1987.
483:relational database system for IBM
267:. IDS was originally developed by
14:
305:IBM Information Management System
645:. November 26, 1984. p. 19.
345:Cullinane Database Systems, Inc.
61:John Cullinane and Larry English
313:International Computers Limited
756:John Markoff (April 1, 1988).
241:management information systems
1:
126:whose products included the
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715:, University of Minnesota.
536:database management system
237:electronic data processing
128:database management system
795:CA IDMS current main site
785:Charles Babbage Institute
263:and IBM compatible (RCA)
16:American software company
566:who was originally from
329:Andrew 'Flip' Filipowski
373:New York Stock Exchange
147:Westwood, Massachusetts
105:Westwood, Massachusetts
175:information technology
102:400 Blue Hill Avenue,
510:(CA IDMS Server) and
390:McCormack & Dodge
362:Hambrecht & Quist
289:Applied Data Research
257:Integrated Data Store
164:Cullinane Corporation
38:Cullinane Corporation
430:Ovation Technologies
394:Dun & Bradstreet
331:, who later founded
303:'s) System 2000 and
538:first developed at
466:Computer Associates
333:Platinum Technology
143:Computer Associates
135:integrated software
93:Computer Associates
21:
763:The New York Times
679:The New York Times
514:(CA IDMS Server).
506:(CA IDMS Server),
409:-like PC product.
349:Cullinet Software
273:Andrew Filipowski
226:Informatics, Inc.
205:(which stood for
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588:Mississauga
377:S&P 500
317:2900 Series
281:Software AG
158:Early years
35:Predecessor
804:Categories
626:References
608:ADS/Online
500:BS2000/OSD
464:, head of
415:Apple Lisa
403:Goldengate
366:Super Bowl
307:(IMS) and
293:DATACOM/DB
279:'s Total,
265:mainframes
253:BFGoodrich
139:Goldengate
618:ADS/Batch
426:Powersoft
297:Model 204
168:mainframe
89:Successor
572:System R
557:IDMS/SQL
518:Products
354:Greylock
137:package
133:and the
120:Cullinet
84:Acquired
25:Industry
20:Cullinet
597:IDMS-DC
592:Ontario
580:Digital
533:network
530:CODASYL
512:Windows
481:CA IDMS
222:Mark IV
218:Culprit
203:PLUS-DA
193:ibrary
189:rogram
153:History
71: (
66:Defunct
58:Founder
48: (
43:Founded
549:IDMS/R
341:Ingres
337:AICorp
285:ADABAS
277:Cincom
209:irect
197:pdate
122:was a
613:COBOL
504:Linux
489:z/VSE
443:1980s
301:Intel
247:1970s
224:from
789:IDMS
602:CICS
524:IDMS
508:UNIX
493:z/VM
491:and
485:z/OS
405:, a
381:4300
321:1900
309:DL/I
179:PLUS
131:IDMS
81:Fate
73:1989
69:1989
50:1968
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698:DOI
583:VAX
576:4GL
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453:VAX
424:at
399:ERP
291:'s
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183:UCC
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