French automated software quality supplier IMM SA has acquired Performance Software Inc (CI No 3,011) and the two claim to have gone straight to the number three position worldwide with their newly-merged company Cyrano Corp. The new company will offer an integrated set of software quality products combining IMM’s Cyrano and Performance Software’s V-Test. V-Test enables modeling of client-server applications with any number of simulated users, to test applications before deployment, or identify where bottlenecks or inefficiencies are occurring. Cyrano analyzes precisely where the problems lie, whether in the optimization of the relational database, the structure of the SQL query, or the client front end. It will report on the problem and suggest design changes. Mike Hudgell, former Performance vice-president of corporate marketing and now in the role for Cyrano, says the merger of the two companies was seamless, with no overlapping of staff at all. The new company will be based in Paris, France, and aims to grow its European presence aggressively. Combined revenue this year will be $20m, in a worldwide market thought to be no more than $180m at present. However, the company is hoping to benefit from the huge growth in the sof tware testing market which analysts are predicting as client-server systems move higher up the enterprise into ever more mission-critical roles. Cyrano will open an office in Germany shortly, and another in Singapore, from where it hopes to expand its Asia-Pacific operations. Hudgell says the company is building relationships with major applications developers and systems integrators. Customers include major banks and telecommunications companies. Electronic Data Systems Corp is using Cyrano in early development stages of a system it is writing for the next World Cup soccer competition, enabling it to load test the system at all stages of development. Presumably the experiences of IBM Corp with the Olympic Games system fiasco in Atlanta will be good news for Cyrano. The company is also benefiting from US health-care legislation, which decrees that all health care institutions have to implement testing of any software they purchase. Cyrano has signed agreements with health-care software vendors such as Cerner Corp, whereby it bundles specially-scripted modeling and testing tools in with the vendor’s software. It also provides consultancy and training. Hudgell says the Internet is also providing enormous opportunity for the firm, since to Cyrano, it is simply one huge client-server environment, and anyone offering transactions over the Internet can benefit from the firm’s quality and load testing products. The Cyrano suite is currently out for Sybase Inc and Microsoft Corp architectures. It supports Visual Basic or Powerbuilder at the client end, Unix, VMS or Windows NT on the server, and Sybase or SQL Server database. Oracle Corp architecture is coming in the next six months.
