IBM Corp has formed a joint venture with Danish software house Damguaard Data A/S, and is launching a new small business package onto the North American market through the deal. The two have formed Damguaard International A/S, in which both have a 50% equity interest, to market Damguaard’s Concorde XAL package in 14 countries. In North America, the software will be known as the Axapta Business Management Solution. The package integrates general accounting and business functions with specific application modules for finance, trade, logistics and production, and is being aimed at customers with between 50 and 500 employees and annual revenues of between $5m and $100m, or departments within larger companies. It includes an object-oriented X++ programming language, modeled after Java but with embedded SQL statements, so that third parties and end users can develop their own applications and create customizations. It supports Microsoft Corp Back Office and SQL Server, with a DB2 version due by mid-year. Damguaard, based in Birkerod, Denmark is a 16 year-old company with around 300 employees.
