StarBase Corp. Announces Strategic Investments in Open Source and Linux
February 9, 2000 01:51 PM
SANTA ANA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 9, 2000--
Strategic Investments in OpenAvenue, StarBase Open Source Projects, and the New StarBase Server for Broad Linux Support
StarBase Corp. SBAS , a leading provider of eBusiness digital asset management solutions, Wednesday announced three strategic corporate initiatives designed to provide comprehensive support for the open source and Linux movements.
The first initiative, previously announced in 1999, is an investment/cross-licensing relationship with OpenAvenue Inc. (www.openavenue.com), a privately held, business-to-business company specializing in Web-based hosting, management and distribution of worldwide collaborative software development projects. StarBase also announced complementary initiatives that include the open sourcing of selected StarBase development projects to be hosted by OpenAvenue, and the new StarBase Server for Linux.
OpenAvenue Investment and Relationship
OpenAvenue, located in Scotts Valley, Calif., hosts application development content provided by individual and corporate content owners to the worldwide community of software developers under open source, community-base, and private licensing. Open source software, which includes Linux, is freely distributed non-proprietary source code developed by a community of contributors organized around a shared body of work.
StarBase, as the incubator for OpenAvenue, provided financial support to launch OpenAvenue. The benefits of the strategic investment in OpenAvenue to StarBase and its shareholders are:
-- 900,000 Initial Shares of Common Stock of OpenAvenue -- License and Maintenance Agreements for StarTeam and StarGate SDK -- Cross Distribution of Products and Services -- "StarPowered" Advertising
900,000 Shares of Common Stock -- Between April and December 1999, StarBase provided approximately $950,000 of capital to OpenAvenue. On Sept. 30, 1999, StarBase elected to convert $250,000 of this financing into 900,000 shares of OpenAvenue's common stock. The remaining $700,000 of capital is subject to repayment to StarBase by OpenAvenue under certain conditions. In December 1999, OpenAvenue completed a private placement financing which brought StarBase's ownership in OpenAvenue to approximately 20%.
StarBase's shares in OpenAvenue have been placed in a Working Trust and will be distributed to StarBase shareholders in the event OpenAvenue completes an initial public offering or similar liquidity event. StarBase expects to receive additional shares of OpenAvenue stock once certain conditions are met.
Daniel P. Ginns, a director of StarBase and a trustee of the Working Trust stated, "We determined that it was essential for StarBase shareholders to have the opportunity to benefit directly from the investment in OpenAvenue, in the event of an initial public offering. The board of directors of StarBase believes that the Working Trust is an excellent financial vehicle for our shareholders. More specifically, we have structured our investment to provide the potential for multiple sources of revenue growth for StarBase, to minimize our investment risk and, most importantly, to support our primary objective of maximizing shareholder value."
License Agreement -- StarTeam, the flagship product of StarBase, will be the core software configuration management functionality utilized within OpenAvenue's Web site. Under the terms of the license agreement between StarBase and OpenAvenue, StarBase receives fees for the StarTeam family of products, including the recently released StarGate SDK, a comprehensive software development kit providing an open programmable access to the StarTeam Server, and connectivity to best-of-breed eBusiness products from industry leading companies. In addition, StarBase will receive an annual maintenance fee for providing technical support as well as maintenance releases of StarTeam.
Cross Distribution of Products and Services -- StarBase has the exclusive, third party right to sell a productized version of OpenAvenue technology on a private-label basis for both intranets and extranets. In addition, OpenAvenue is licensed to distribute the StarTeam family of products, and OpenAvenue has agreed to host private projects for StarBase customers as an application service provider.
StarPowered Advertising -- OpenAvenue will prominently display StarBase's "StarPowered" service mark on relevant portions of their Web site.
StarBase Open Source Projects on OpenAvenue
StarBase will open source components of its technology and certain key products on OpenAvenue including the StarTeam command line interface, a platform-independent client to StarTeam, and the source code for Project OpenWeb, a Web client development framework and collection of browser-based client components for StarTeam.
"Embracing the open source movement is important to StarBase customers and partners because it provides a degree of latitude necessary for innovative ideas and business processes to emerge," said Bill French, chief architect, StarBase Internet applications. "StarTeam is a collaborative environment wrapped around a powerful digital asset management and versioning repository that includes a robust and limitless SDK (StarGate). Since we increasingly find our customers exploring new ways to use our technology, providing the source code to key parts of our client frameworks will broaden the usage and possibilities for our family of products in digital asset management," continued French.
StarBase Server to Support Linux and Open Source Projects
The previously announced StarBase server, planned for first release in late March 2000, will support Microsoft Windows and Windows NT, UNIX and now the Linux operating system as well. More importantly, the new server will operate as the underlying technological engine for the StarBase open source projects to be hosted on OpenAvenue.
"In a logical and planned progression, we've taken our proven and highly reliable core technology -- the StarBase Server -- and brought it to Linux, an equally reliable and popular operating system, said Alan Kucheck, vice president engineering. "Linux provides a quality environment for the StarBase Server whether managing large teams of open source developers, small content development and collaboration projects, or enterprise-wide digital asset management initiatives."
"The open source movement is gaining momentum, and StarBase is pleased to see its core technology become a part of this exciting industry development," said William R. Stow, III, chairman and chief executive officer. "StarBase is very excited about the potential of OpenAvenue and the benefits to both StarBase and its shareholders. Leading hardware and software companies have begun to position their applications into the open source environment. We believe that OpenAvenue has the technology, the business plan and the management team to be successful in this market. With the additional release of StarBase technology and products into open source projects hosted by OpenAvenue and supported fully by our Linux StarBase Server, we are positioned to accelerate our business growth as the open source movement gains wider and wider acceptance. StarBase corporate customers will be able to use OpenAvenue services to rapidly customize and deploy our products to a much broader class of users," continued Stow.
About StarBase
StarBase Corp. is a leading provider eBusiness Digital Asset Management Solutions for the enterprise. The underlying StarBase eCycle technology offers a complete family of user-friendly software products that enable teams of people to collaborate in the production of Web sites, e-Commerce and business critical applications. StarTeam, a prime component of eCycle, received "Two Thumbs Up" from New Media in May 1999, Four Stars from Software Development in August 1999, was named the 25th fastest growing ISV for Windows by Microsoft and CMP Media in April 1999, and "Best of the Test Center" by InfoWorld in January 1998. Leading organizations such as Boeing, Dell Corp., Intel Corp., Hollywood Entertainment, Bank of America, Sprint, and Xerox have chosen StarTeam to aid in their development projects.
StarBase is located at 4 Hutton Centre Drive, Suite 800, Santa Ana, Calif. 92707. Tel: 714/445-4400. Fax: 714/445-4404. Visit StarBase's Web site at www.starbase.com.
StarBase and its product names are trademarks of StarBase Corp. All other product and company names herein are trademarks of their respective owners.
Forward Looking Statements
When used in the preceding discussion, the words "believes, expects, or intend to" and similar conditional expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Such statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties and actual results could differ materially from those expressed in any of the forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, (i) conditions in the general economy or the software industry, (ii) the timely development and market acceptance of products and technologies, (iii) competitive factors, (iv) demand for team productivity software products, (v) sell-through of products in the sales channel, and (vi) other risks described in StarBase Corp.'s SEC reports and filings.
CONTACT: StarBase Corp., Santa Ana Doug Norman, 714/445-4445 dnorman@starbase.com or Ann Jones (investor relations), 714/445-4440 ajones@starbase.com
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