It may be smaller than IBM Corp, but Momentum Software Corp believes bigger does not mean better, and is saying as much in an advertisement currently appearing in some software magazines which seems to have upset a few people (CI No 3,193). But the 30- person middleware company is not put off by the likes of IBM or Microsoft Corp and is working on a plan of slow growth and steady and continued development of its XIPC message oriented middleware product to bring itself to prominence. The company was established in 1986 by Ely Eshel and Ben Schwartz, former consultants who discovered a problem that needed to be addressed in the financial sector and decided to develop a product to sort it out themselves. Momentum has one core product, XIPC, which has several variations, and has witnessed many technological changes over the years. In 1993, three years after the launch of XIPC, Momentum acquired the technology and business of mainframe oriented Boston, Massachusetts company, Horizon Strategies Inc. Over time Horizon’s technology was integrated into the XIPC product. Momentum has one office in Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey and Eshel says the company’s greatest landmark came at the end of 1996 when the third version of XIPC was released. Operating in the same middleware space as IBM’s MQ and Microsoft’s Falcon products does not deter Eshel, who doesn’t really regard the pair as competitors. He said: We’re just living in the same space. The company apparently isn’t trying to grab market share from IBM and says it deals with areas in which it is more sophisticated than IBM, who Eshel says is strong in the mainframe arena. He commented: There is enough market for both of us. Unintentionally, XIPC seems to have attracted a bit of a following in the financial, transportation and telecommunications arenas, but Eshel says Momentum doesn’t target the product at any particular market. The company is poised to release the beta version of a Java implementation of XIPC on July 15, which can be downloaded from the company’s Web site. It also plans to work with Corba and hopes to realize something in that area in the next six to nine months. Looking to the future, Eshel muses: It’s not easy to predict the future but I think Microsoft’s Falcon will give IBM a run for its money. There is always room for superior technology and we are going to go to places where our technology is suited to our customers. Momentum’s Web site can be found at https://www.momsoft.com.
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