Pick Systems Inc is intent on assuming a more visible image on the marketplace, after years of seeming to hide its light behind a bushel. The privately-owned software company was set up originally in 1972 under the name Pick & Associates. Its primary aim was to develop and market GIRLS, the Generalised Information Retrieval Language and System, designed by Richard Pick in 1965 for the US Army, which at the time was fighting in Vietnam. It was first used in an application for tracking parts for the Cheyenne helicopter project. The product was the forerunner of the current Pick operating system and was completely hardware-independent. Aimed primarily at information-based companies, it was originally licensed to minicomputer manufacturers, notably Microdata Inc, but was sold via independent value-added resellers too.
Several firsts
Thus, it soon appeared under the guise of the Prime Information series, with implementations such as Reality from McDonnell Douglas Corp, which bought Microdata, and Revelation from Cosmos. As a company, Pick Systems claims to have had firsts in several areas: it was the first to introduce a commercial multi-user, multi-tasking database management system, the first to offer variable-length records and multi-valued fields and the first to provide an English-based query language. By 1979, as a result of expanding its licensee base to include turnkey operators, such as Ultimate Corp and Applied Digital Data Systems Inc, Pick had transformed itself into Pick Systems Inc. Nonetheless, a major threat to the company did emerge on the commercial minicomputer front in the form of Unix and open systems. After fighting for a while, Pick faced up to the dilemma of having to compete or co-exist, and subsequently re-positioned its product as a database management system, which not only interfaced with Unix, but also provided Pick users with a bridge to open systems. Such vendors as IBM Corp, Beaverton, Oregon-based Sequent Computer Systems Inc and Data General Corp now all offer Pick on their Unix hardware. The second phase of growth for the company began in 1984, following the release of a personal computer version of its multi-user database system. A low-end offering for the fast-growing microcomputer market, it was said to gross some 10,000 new users every month, and was marketed and supported by Pick’s own direct International Master Distributors and US dealers. But now, Pick is saying that it has moved into its third growth phase. With IBM’s RISC-based RS/6000’s rapidly becoming a popular hardware choice for Pick developers, some 20% of RS/6000 sales are now reportedly made on the strength of the Pick system.
By Catherine Everett
Only four years ago, IBM hardware was estimated to account for 1% of the Pick market; it is now claimed to account for 10%. And again, Pick’s so-called seamless integration with both Unix and MS-DOS is viewed as highly favourable. Unix, in particular, is seen as the way ahead. Considered to be the fastest growing market at the present moment, Pick, ironically enough, is keen to exploit it to the full. Thus, within the next six months, a new series of implementations is to be introduced for Unix-based Hewlett-Packard Co, ICL Plc, Motorola Inc and Sun Microsystems Inc machines. Basically, Pick is claiming that its database is future-proof – the Irvine, California company is seemingly unafraid of new technological advances, simply stating that new implementations can always be developed. This is said to make its product, in effect, software-independent. With 225,000 mid-range installations, more than 125,000 personal computer installations and some 3m users worldwide, Pick ranks its offering among the top five database development systems, the others being Oracle, Ingres, Informix, dBase and DB2. And it is keen to exploit this position still further, citing three main short-term aims. Firstly, it is eager, for obvious reasons, to maintain and develop its current customer base. Traditionally associated with local government and small business, it also has an established
clientele in insurance and the retail sector. Secondly, Pick is determined to win back those customers that have migrated to Pick-like environments, the most significant ones being Unidata, with 2% of the Pick market, UniVerse with 6% and Revelation with 4%. Although these systems offered support under Unix before Pick, Pick feels its major advantage lies in the fact that it hasn’t restricted development of the database to Unix environments alone. Competitors’ products are said to be further disadvantaged by being based on the old R83 version of the system.
Graphics-based
Pick, on the other hand, has invested a lot of time and money building on past achievements (CI No 2,001). Therefore, it is convinced that once customers realise how other sellers’ offerings are falling behind the times, they will be wooed back by the obvious benefits of the standard product. To this end, a big marketing push is to be instituted over the coming months. On the agenda is the employment of more full-time sales people, particularly in the UK and the rest of Europe, a direct mailing programme and a series of educational presentations to various targeted companies. Lastly, Pick is intent on winning customers from other database environments. However, the realisation has not escaped it that domination of this sector is but a pipedream until it is able to control its own Pick market, currently valued at $3,000m. Thus, this last area is to be the major priority for the present. Looking at things on a longer-term basis, Pick has several goals. It wants to change the database from being a character-based to a graphics-based system; it wants to get more involved in networking, especially the client-server environment; and it is eager to continue improving integration of its product into Unix, MS-DOS, OS/2, SQL interfaces and also Windows NT, when it arrives. Pick is eager to position itself as the database management system for Unix in the business environment and to this end, is keen to develop ever-stronger relationships with the mainstream hardware and software vendors. Pick Systems employs only 90 people and is valued at just $25m; a little company, perhaps, but one with big ambitions.
