APIlink Software SA, based in Paris, France is taking its cross-system software integration product, the Apilink Service Warehouse, off to the US, where it will market the product as middleware for middleware. It eventually hopes to tread in the footsteps of compatriots such as Business Objects SA onto the Nasdaq system. It has got through $7m of Swiss venture capital funding, and is seeking another round to finance its US ambitions, which it hopes will lead to an initial public offering by the end of next year. APIlink is setting up shops in Boston, Massachusetts, and Berkshire, UK, and claims the Apilink hub at the heart of its Service Warehouse can integrate legacy applications, databases and middleware across multiple systems. Essentially the technology builds middle-tier services: it brings in data from different formats, gives it an object face and creates an application programming interface that a client can access, plus links to the back-end. The hub separates middleware protocols entering the hub, translates between the middleware types and makes application services shareable. APIlink says it can do all this without the need for complex software re-engineering, although it does require use of a proprietary script ing language to write the services. The hub supports database communications including Object DataBase Connectivity, Request Procedure Calls, message-oriented middleware, object request brokers, Distributed Computing Environment and transaction proc essing. The Service Warehouse includes the scripting language for creating Apilink services and a facility for incorporating C/C++ development services, a repository of services, modules to execute external applications, client extensions, and an engine and supervising kernel that executes Apilink services and logs events, allocates channels and access, supports batch processing and security and authentication services. Servers are developed using the rules-based scripting language which encapsulates processes, transactions and services. Client interfaces support TCP/IP, Remote Procedure Call, LU 6.2, triggers and stored procedures for Oracle, Sybase and Informix databases and for transaction processing monitors. A management environment includes Simple Network Management Protocol tools. It will offer links to third-party systems management systems over time. It is working on an application programming interface link to Java for the fourth quarter and will incorporate Java class libraries over time. It has recently released Apilink Web, providing application and access and update facilities from browsers. It also offers Apilink modules for HyperText Transfer Protocol, file transfer protocol, electronic mail and Telnet. It has won the likes of Hewlett-Packard Co, Digital Equipment Corp, Compagnie des Machines Bull SA, IBM Corp, Forte Software Inc and Sun Microsystems Inc in Europe and is looking for US agreements. It will sell indirect in the first instance but plans a direct sales force in due course. Prices start at $10,000 for two developers and two concurrent users. Apilink is up under AIX, Solaris, HP-UX, Digital Unix, Windows NT, Windows, NetWare and on Bull and Unisys mainframes. APILink is aiming for $5m sales by the end of the year. It claims 60 customers. APIlink’s Genesis is a technology created in 1990 for linking Macintoshes to Bull mainframe applications at SNCF. The APIlink Group was created last year; its major shareholder is the Union Bank of Switzerland.
