Marlow, Buckinghamshire-based Uniface UK Ltd, the UK end of the Netherlands headquartered supplier of advanced fourth generation language and database application development systems, is stretching its wings under sales-oriented managing director Chris King. The company has concentrated on its proprietary language development environment for use with database systems. Uniface v.5.1 is independent of database, hardware, and software engineering tools, the company says; it works with a number of relational databases, including Sybase, Ingres, Informix and Stratus Computer Systems Inc’s SQL 2000 and enables users to run a variety of databases while maintaining a common interface. It incorporates a three-schema architecture which enables users to develop applications in multiple client-server environments, with access to different proprietary relational database management systems via network protocols.
AIX beneficiary
It offers links to Unix and VMS-based hardware and can be used with Ultrix, MS-DOS and OS/2 operating systems. King believes that Uniface UK Ltd is poised to be a beneficiary of IBM’s new release of its AIX Unix operating system, AIX 3 (CI No 1,843). Tool control in the software is handled by the IBM SDE WorkBench/6000 and SDE Integrator/6000, based on Hewlett-Packard Co’s SoftBench Broadbase Message Server licensed from Hewlett last April. Uniface supplies the sole proprietary language on that workbench. King says that IBM devised the new approach in response to its trailing position in the Unix marketplace. He acknowledges the success of the RS/6000 but maintains that IBM has insufficient market share. There are two reasons for this, he says – one, IBM is light on software in comparison to Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems Inc, both of which have strong alliances with software vendors; and secondly, the price-performance ratio on the IBM machines has not hitherto been as competitive as it might be. IBM is keen to show commitment, and King describes the enhancements it has just made to the RS/6000 range as impressive. The price-performance is now much more in line with the aggressive trends to come from Sun and other companies in the months to come, he adds. Uniface has been in the right place at the right time, he says, as IBM has been scouring Europe for some six months as the software market is more advanced in Europe than it is in the US. King says that IBM is looking to double its market share in workstations in one year with the RS/6000 and is in with a good chance. Other moves are afoot for Uniface to improve its compatibility with Hewlett-Packard products, which will yield results in a couple of months, King says. The ground has been shifting in other areas of Uni-face business over the past year, as the nature of the relationship with Sybase Corp changed.
By Noni Stacey
King talks of it in terms of young companies maturing, though Sybase had created its own Open Systems Software programme involving close competitor Unify Corp (CI No 1,722), which had directly affected its agreement to sell Uniface products under the name Fastbuild. Uniface has always valued Sybase highly: the companies have worked hand in hand, and Sybase is now working on its own tools, he says. Uniface should not be dependent on Sybase and he says that Sybase is still happy to show Uniface products to potential customers. Nevertheless, there is no disguising the fact that the companies are taking separate paths. King asserts that there is no direct competition from Ask Computer Inc’s Ingres, as it and other products offer tool sets wedded to a database engine. Uniface is reluctant to develop a database engine, despite being approached by an unnamed company that offered to take Uniface tools into sales situations alongside its own database engine. It is, however, harder to dismiss the Windows version of Ingres 4GL. The Uniface Windows version will be out later in the year, perhaps by mid-year, although the beta-test programme has not yet begun. In the sales area, King is hoping to build up the number of value adde
d resellers, who supply the bread and butter business from 20 to 80, and to take up with IBM value-added resellers.
Ambition
By 1993, he would like to see resellers contributing 15% of the company’s revenue, a figure that could ultimately rise to 30%, he says. IBM puts 40% of its RS/6000 business through resellers, he says. King has an ambition check-list that includes a trebling of market share in 1992, although he is unable to state the percentage share the company enjoys at present. He is also aiming to double the UKP3m annual turnover, get major companies to put Uniface tools on their shopping lists, and generally raise the profile of the company. Uniface is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of its Dutch parent company, Uniface BV. Prior to this, Pi Holdings Ltd owned 40%, Uniface BV 40%, and staff and management the remaining 20% (CI No 1,408). Uniface bought out the Pi stake in a transaction that included payments based on performance in the second half or 1991. The deal with Pi was sewn up last April, the legal severance completed in June. King says that Uniface had wanted to emulate its sister company Uniface France SA in enjoying the status of a wholly-owned subsidiary for some time.
