Software developers versant Corp. and Poet Holdings Inc. are merging to provide a line of object-oriented databases to power a broader range of applications than either could on its own.
The combined company, which will be known as Versant and was formed last week in a stock swap valued at $26 million, will work on software that delivers storage, integration, analysis and the ability to act on real-time data, said officials from Versant, of Fremont, Calif.
Fast Objects, an object database from Poet, of Hamburg, Germany, is used in embedded applications; Versants object database, VDS, is used in high- performance, large-scale, real-time applications. The merged technologies will be designed to manage real-time, XML, and other hierarchical and navigational data, according to officials.
The acquisition is important to Versant as it pursues the emerging technology of JDO (Java Data Objects), officials said. JDO allows developers to create a universal way of accessing data and thus give applications the ability to choose databases from various database vendors without the need to make code changes.
Versant officials also announced last week a partnership with SolarMetric Inc., in Austin, Texas, to integrate Poets JDO for Fast Objects with SolarMetrics JDO technology. Versant will also license, resell and act as an OEM for SolarMetrics JDO technology, officials said.
Object database companies have been consolidating, with Progress Software Corp. purchasing Excelon Corp. last fall and Pervasive Software Inc. buying Data Junction Corp. in August.