TakeFive Software GmbH has unveiled the latest version of its cross platform source code engineering tool, Sniff+. The Salzburg, Austria and Cupertino, California-dual headquartered company claims Sniff+ 3.0 enables the development of large scale development projects, and is much easier to use, while at the same time shortening development cycles. The six-year-old company has not surprisingly identified that operating environments will become increasingly heterogeneous with a mix of Windows and Unix systems. As a result of this, development tools that support such development will become increasingly important. TakeFive has added Visual C++ support in Sniff+ 3.0, as well as new remote cross platform development capabilities. The remote feature with its build and debug functions, enables programmers to develop on the system of their choice- Windows NT, 95 and all major Unix systems – and then transparently compile, debug and execute commands on a remote Unix machine. Sniff+ is aimed primarily at mid to high end development projects, consisting of between three and 100 people. The company has 13,000 licenses in operation and around 1,500 customers mainly in the telecommunications, finance and industrial spaces, including the likes of Motorola Inc, British Telecommunications Plc, BMW, American Express, Sun Microsystems Inc and Lucent Technologies Inc. Sniff+ is TakeFive’s only product, although it does plan to develop further offerings. There are 70 staff within the company at the moment, but TakeFive says it is getting bigger all the time. It generated $11m in revenues last year, and this year wants to grow by between 30 and 50%. TakeFive was bought by Nasdaq-traded Integrated Systems Inc in 1995, and operates as a wholly owned subsidiary.
