UCMP news
UniComp and Oracle Form Strategic Partnership
December 15, 1998 12:30 PM
MARIETTA, Ga.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 15, 1998--UNICOMP, INC. UCMP today announced that its subsidiary, Unibol, Inc., a market leader in application rehosting products and Oracle ORCL , the world's leading supplier of software for information management, have formed a strategic partnership. This partnership will offer IBM AS/400 Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) worldwide a cost-effective, fast-track approach to selling their existing AS/400 software applications into the rapidly expanding market for enterprise-class solutions running with Oracle under Microsoft Windows NT Server. According to Gartner Group's Tom Bittman, VP and Research Director - Server Strategies, "NT and Intel servers are enjoying a rapid growth of server market share that will continue to grow to about 45 percent of the server market by 2003(1). Packaged-application ISVs built the large AS/400 installed base, but the same ISVs are hedging their bets with NT strategies(2)." The Unibol/Oracle partnership will provide AS/400 ISVs with a comprehensive partner support program, called the EnableNT Partner Program, designed to assist partners in the process of rehosting their applications on Windows NT servers with Oracle and to market these applications to their customers. The EnableNT Partner Program is now entering controlled release with a select number of partners. General release is expected to follow at the end of March 1999. Kernel to the rehosting process is Unibol's UNIBOL400 product. This product mirrors the functionality of AS/400 under Windows NT and the high level of compatibility enables existing AS/400 applications to be rebuilt and delivered on Windows NT and fully integrated with Oracle's RDBMS without time consuming and expensive code rewrites and staff retraining. Manuel de Font-Reaulx, Oracle's Senior Director of Alliances & Technologies division in EMEA states: "With their applications running On Oracle, AS/400 solution providers can effectively expand their business to new markets. The partnership between Unibol and Oracle brings AS/400 ISVs a very straight forward way of rehosting their applications on the NT platform while, at the same time, delivering the same quality of working environment to the end user." Oracle's proven reliability, scalability and performance makes enterprise computing on NT a reality, thus enabling AS/400 business applications providers to seamlessly benefit from the fast growing NT market. Oracle's Alliances Design & Migration Services group has worked closely together with Unibol's development teams to tightly integrate the Internet database, Oracle8i, to the UNIBOL400 product suite. The result is a state-of-the-art execution environment on Windows NT for AS/400 business solutions. The UNIBOL400 on Oracle solution suite provides the reliability, manageability, security, scalability and performance expected in the AS/400 world. Furthermore, AS/400 applications providers using UNIBOL400 On Oracle can now think about adding new high value functionality such as data analysis, fail-over support and Web access to their solutions. "Under this partnership agreement, Oracle will also deliver technical assistance to AS/400 ISVs to facilitate the migration, ensure highest performance and customer satisfaction," states Olivier Cabot, Director Oracle Design & Migration Services. Stephen A. Hafer, President and CEO of UniComp, said, "Our combined technologies provide a clear business advantage for AS/400 ISVs who need to address the market for enterprise class solutions on Windows NT today with proven applications which address real business needs." For more information on the Enable NT Partner Programme, visit the Unibol web site at unibol.com or the Oracle web site at alliance.oracle.com
References:
(1) AS/400 and E-Business: Where Does This Road Lead? - GartnerGroup AS/400 Business Strategies: 1998 and Beyond Conference Presentation (June, 1998)
(2) AS/400's Fate Is in the Hands of ISVs - GartnerGroup (October, 1998)
Oracle Corporation is the world's leading supplier of software for information management, and the world's second largest independent software company. With annual revenues of more than $8 billion, the company offers its database, application server, tools and application products, along with related consulting, education and support services in more than 140 countries around the world. For more information about Oracle, please call 650/506-7000. Oracle's World Wide Web address is (URL) oracle.com.
Trademarks
Oracle is a registered trademark and Oracle8i is a registered trademark of Oracle Corp. UniComp, Inc. develops, markets and supports platform-migration, vertical market applications and payment processing systems for Windows NT and UNIX-based computer systems and point of transaction processors worldwide. The Company licenses its technology to a cross section of industries including manufacturing, distribution, transportation, public-sector, point of sale and transaction processors. Additionally, the Company provides installation, training, systems integration, support and Year 2000 services, serving a worldwide network of end user customers, dealers and distributors. UniComp employs over 500 staff worldwide and has over 50 distributors internationally, with over 30,000 installations in more than 55 countries. Please visit our World Wide Web site at unicomp.com for further information. This announcement contains forward looking statements and remarks relative to future events and financial performance which are subject to the risks and uncertainties described in reports filed from time to time with the SEC. These filings contain and identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in our forward-looking statements. These factors include, but are not limited to, timely development and market acceptance of its products (and upgrades to those products), completion of UNIBOL400 for Windows NT development and its subsequent market acceptance the ability to develop new products to penetrate the POS marketplace, market pressures on its services businesses, and the impact of competitive products, pricing, and the fact that the company's software product license revenue can fluctuate from quarter to quarter as a result of various factors and conditions.
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