Attachmate
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| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Founded | Bellevue, Washington, 1981 |
| Headquarters | Seattle, Washington |
| Key people | Jeff Hawn, President and CEO; Bob Flynn, SVP Global Sales and GM Host Connectivity Solutions; Charles Sansbury, CFO; Logan Wray, SVP Acquisitions, GM NetIQ BU |
| Industry | Computer software technology services |
| Products | Terminal Emulator Software, Interoperability Software, Security Software |
| Website | http://www.attachmate.com |
Attachmate Attachmate is a major software company owned by an investment group led by Francisco Partners, Golden Gate Capital, and Thoma Cressey Bravo. Attachmate focuses on host connectivity and systems and security management software. It is the largest privately owned software company in Washington, USA.
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[edit] Products
As a result of the mergers and acquisitions detailed below, Attachmate has broadened its solution set to include several brands:
[edit] Terminal Emulation
Attachmate develops a variety of Terminal emulators:
- Reflection (IBM, HP, UNIX, OpenVMS, X)
- EXTRA! X-treme (IBM, UNIX, OpenVMS)
- INFOConnect (Unisys)
[edit] Systems and Security Management
The NetIQ business unit delivers systems and security management software.
Among the NetIQ product offerings is AppManager. The NetIQ AppManager product is well known for its extensive, industry-accepted standards of network, applications, and systems monitoring.[citation needed] The product includes monitoring support for many types of software, ranging from Microsoft operating systems to Microsoft SQL Server databases, a variety of messaging environments, UNIX and Linux operating systems, Oracle systems, and voice-over-IP for Cisco, Nortel, and Avaya.
[edit] Secure Communications
Reflection for Secure IT, formerly F-Secure SSH, is an SSH (secure shell) client and server for Windows and UNIX.
[edit] Legacy Integration
[edit] PC X Server
Reflection X allows Windows users to use graphical and command-line based applications on remote UNIX, Linux, and OpenVMS hosts.
[edit] History
[edit] Attachmate Corporation
Attachmate, founded in 1982 by Frank W. Pritt, focused initially on the IBM® terminal emulation market, and became a major technology employer in the Seattle area. Based in Bellevue, Washington, the company became one of the largest PC software companies in the world, with offices in more than 50 cities in North America and in 30 countries. The company made several acquisitions, through mergers and purchases, to expand its range of host access hardware and software solutions. Its products and the company itself won numerous awards, including being named one of the “Best Companies to Work For” by Washington CEO magazine.
Attachmate served 80% of Fortune 500 and Global 2000 companies, with over 13 million users worldwide. Attachmate's major development locations included their headquarters in Bellevue, an office in Bellingham, Washington, and a facility in Cincinnati, Ohio.In the early days, Attachmate focused on 3270 emulation for PCs with some hardware 3270 boards as well. Attachmate invested heavily in its sales and marketing organization worldwide in the early 90s and quickly grew its market share from 3rd in the host-connectivity market to 1st with its EXTRA! Personal Client product. The company continued to grow organically as well as through acquisition of KEA Systems (makers of KEAterm VT340 and VT420 terminal emulators, and KEA X x terminal software), and DCA (makers of IRMA line of emulators, INFOconnect, Crosstalk communications software, and OpenMind collaborative software). Later, the company also acquired The Wollongong Group (makers of Pathway TCP and Emissary).
After the acquisition of DCA, the company quickly dominated the 3270, 5250 and VT marketplace, and built its revenues in excess of $400 million in 1995 - as compared to roughly $40M just five years earlier. A Senior Management transition led by incoming CEO Jim Lindner made an attempt to create a unified product strategy and take the company public. The strategy received positive reviews from customers and the press initially but eventually stalled as a clash between Pre and Post DCA-merger management destabilized product development and Frank Pritt took back the helm in July 1996 [1] [2].
Bill Boisvert, formerly of Paccar, was the next president from January 1998 [3] until his resignation in October 2000 after a year of layoffs and flat revenue growth [4].
The next stage of its history was marked by tight fiscal management and managing to the bottom line. As revenues were impacted through the bursting tech bubble after 2001, Attachmate was hit with successive rounds of layoffs. In 2001, the Burnaby development center was closed; in June 2002 the Cincinnati development center was closed and the company's VP of Development was fired [5].
On April 18, 2005, it was announced [6] that three investment companies, Golden State Capital, Francisco Partners, and Thoma Cressey Equity Partners, would buy Attachmate. Attachmate would be merged with long-time competitor WRQ, whom the investors had bought previously.
Attachmate no longer sells or supports 3270 IRMA, SDLC, or ISCA SDLC hardware adapters, or provides driver downloads. In February of 2007, they sold their remaining hardware inventory to Alpine Computer Systems, a legacy equipment reseller, and refers customers to them for sales and service on hardware adapters and drivers.
[edit] WRQ, Inc.
In 1981, Doug Walker, Mike Richer and Marty Quinn founded Walker, Richer & Quinn (WRQ) to integrate microcomputers with existing IT environments. The company set its sights on the Hewlett-Packard® market, launching the first commercially viable terminal emulator for the HP® 3000. Based in Seattle, Washington, WRQ was one of the top 20 largest software companies, and consistently ranked in Fortune magazine’s “100 Best companies to Work for in America,” and Washington CEO magazine’s “Best Companies to Work For.”
On December 6, 2004, it was announced that WRQ had been purchased by an investment group.
[edit] NetIQ
NetIQ, founded in 1995 by Ching-Fa Hwang, Her-daw Che, Hon Wong, Ken Prayoon Cheng and Thomas R. Kemp, was a company that provided systems management and security management software. It provided businesses world-wide with solutions to monitor, analyze, and optimize the performance, availability, and security of IT infrastructure. Its flagship products included AppManager and Security Manager. The company headquarters were in San Jose, California, with about 900 employees worldwide. Their Nasdaq ticker symbol was NTIQ.
NetIQ's toolset included systems, security, VoIP and Administration software.
On April 27, 2006, it was announced that AttachmateWRQ would acquire NetIQ.
[edit] Attachmate and WRQ merger
After buying both WRQ, Inc. and Attachmate Corporation, who had been long-time competitors in the host emulation business, it was announced that the companies would be merged. Importantly, both companies shared a common goal – to extend more information, to more people, in the most secure and manageable way possible. On June 1, 2005, the deal closed, and the new company was named AttachmateWRQ.
In June 2005, shortly after the merger was made official, AttachmateWRQ announced that its corporate headquarters would be located in WRQ's Seattle, Washington location. The vacated headquarters of Attachmate in the Factoria neighborhood of Bellevue, Washington would be filled quickly by T-Mobile, who already occupied part of the building.
The company continued to support both Attachmate and WRQ product sets (which overlap in many cases) until products could be merged or replaced.
[edit] OnDemand Acquisition
On March 7, 2006, AttachmateWRQ announced that they had acquired OnDemand Software. OnDemand Software develops an award-winning product called WinINSTALL, which is for desktop management in IT environments. This product is similar to AttachmateWRQ's existing NetWizard product. The high-quality WinINSTALL product combined with AttachmateWRQ's global sales presence provides significant opportunities for the company.
[edit] NetIQ Acquisition
AttachmateWRQ announced on April 27, 2006 that they had purchased NetIQ for about $495 million cash. The press release stated the deal would close in 90 days. NetIQ would be merged into AttachmateWRQ, creating a single company with $400 million annual revenue and over 40,000 customers in 60 countries. On June 20, a press release announced that NetIQ shareholders had approved this purchase, and the acquisition would be complete by the end of that month.
On July 5, 2006, both companies released a press release announcing the closing of the deal. The new company would do business under the name Attachmate Corporation.
[edit] WinINSTALL Sale
On June 30, 2008, Scalable Software announced in a press release that they had acquired the WinINSTALL business unit from Attachmate. WinINSTALL was the desktop management suite previously acquired by Attachmate from OnDemand Software.
[edit] CEO Controversy
Jeff Hawn—the president and CEO of Seattle-based Attachmate who lives in Austin, Texas—finds himself in criminal court, charged with theft and 32 counts of aggravated animal cruelty. Hawn owns a home outside the old Colorado mining town of Fairplay, CO. He warned his neighbor, rancher Monte Downare, that Downare needs to keep his bison from roaming onto his property or risk having them hunted. Hawn later sued Downare, alleging the bison had turned his land in South Park into a "feed lot." Nine days after filing the law suit, shots were heard in the area and the remains of 32 bison were found across Hawn's property and nearby land. Read More
