Software AG aims for wider audience

Software AG is rolling out plans to enter into the object/ relational database market this autumn as the company moves away from its traditional market by becoming a mainstream player.

The firm has traditionally sold its Adabas relational database into the mainframe sector, but has also recently begun selling a high-end Unix version into its installed base.

But this autumn Software AG hopes to break into additional markets with a range of modules based on the emerging SQL3 standard, which users can plug into Adabas to handle text retrieval, images, entity relationships and spatial and geographic information.

Users will choose which modules they want when they buy Adabas, and can pay for additional ones as they need them.

Roopinder Singh, Software AG director of marketing and strategic partnerships, said: ?The more mainstream database players such as Oracle and Informix don?t have a system at the very high-end Unix and mainframe level, but that market is now experiencing 15 per cent growth.

?Those companies are more interested in the mass market, but we believe we have isolated requirements that will grow over time.?

Software AG is hoping to form deals with application suppliers such as SAP to support the product and intends to recruit Vars to develop applications based on it in vertical markets such as finance. The software developer will also target the Fortune 500 organisations directly.

Microsoft recently signed an agreement with Software AG to port Dcom to Unix platforms as the software giant seemed to be touting Dcom as an alternative in the internet market.