Thomson SA of Paris has set up a new organisation within its U3S group of software companies to market and support the Nomad product family which it bought late last month from Dun & Bradstreet subsidiary D&B Computing Services Inc for an undisclosed sum said to be $20m. In time, Must Software International, which will be based in Wilton, Connecticut, is expected to add other products to its portfolio but for now it will concentrate on the development and marketing of what in 1975 was the first commercially available implementation of the relational database model for IBM and compatible systems. For the next eight years, Nomad was available only through the bureau service of National CSS. Since 1983, however, Nomad has been installed at approximately 400 IBM mainframe sites in the US and Canada and at another 100 in Europe and earlier this year D&B claimed it had passed Ramis, now owned by On-line Software International to take second place behind Information Builders’ Focus as the best-selling fourth generation software tool. Commenting on the acquisition, Thomson said that despite its European success with Clio, a production database management system installed at over 600 sites, it needed a product such as Nomad in order to establish a position in the North American market. Thomson intends to become a major player in the 1990’s, according to U3S president Jean-Luc Badault. Nomad has a very prestigious cli-nt base and high quality people. Moreover, our analysis shows that it is clearly technically superior to Ramis and Focus. And Frank Fish, boss of Must Software, says that Nomad with its proven, C-based version, written specifically for the PC, the new MVS/XA release, interactive windows on both mainframe and PC, a Codd-endorsed relational database model, and the full support for SQL Nomad provides an excellent base for what we intend to do in the application development environment in the 1990s. Our immediate plans include strengthening customer support, expanding the sales force, and rapidly enhancing the product line. Over 90% of D&B’s staff have joined Must. In the UK, Chris Reveley managing director of Nomad distributor, RCMS Computing Services Ltd, welcomes the change of ownership: it comes at a time when Nomad is becoming increasingly accepted in the UK market but I feel confident that our users will welcome Thomson CSF’s investment, which clearly ensures that it continues as a strategic product with a long-term future. Despite the sale of Nomad, Dun and Bradstreet says it has no plans to sell either of its other main software subsidiaries, McCormack and Dodge, and Erisco.
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