Product Code Database
Cullinet was a software company whose products included the database management system IDMS and the integrated software package Goldengate. In 1989, the company was bought by Computer Associates. Cullinet was founded in Arlington, Massachusetts and later headquartered at 400 Blue Hill Drive in Westwood, Massachusetts.
Rather than write its own products, Cullinane approached IT (information technology) departments (at that time called Data Processing departments) of major enterprises, particularly banks, to identify internally developed applications that he felt had potential to be productized and licensed to others. However, it proved difficult to sell these applications because most weren't generalized and supportable systems. As a result, the company decided to develop a source code management system, called PLUS, that competed with Pansophic's (Panvalet) and Uccel's products (UCC-1 tape management system, etc.). The first version of PLUS (which stood for Program Library Update System) required the use of magnetic tape devices, and was not competitive with the other, disk-based products. Although the company eventually responded with a disk-based version, called PLUS-DA (which stood for Direct Access, a common name for disks at the time) they did not become successful in this market.
The first breakthrough product was a report writer named Culprit, developed in-house by Gil Curtis and Anna Marie Thron, who had built the PHI payroll system. The product competed with Mark IV from Informatics, Inc., but was perceived as a late entry in the report writer category.
The company struggled with financial stability until it branded a variation of Culprit, EDP Auditor, which was nothing more than a second name for the same product with a collection of predefined reports, but more importantly, special services aimed at the new discipline of EDP (electronic data processing) Auditing including the first EDP Auditors User, special support to give auditors independence of data processing which was very important to them. Oral history interview with John Cullinane. Charles Babbage InstiThe company was originally started bytute, University of Minnesota. What was remarkable is that many corporations licensed essentially identical products. This led to serendipitous prosperity for Cullinane. As EDP auditors developed knowledge about business systems and computers, they could invariably produce reports faster than slower-moving, internal IT departments. As a result, MIS (management information systems) departments would feel compelled to buy the Culprit version for their own use — to compete.
John Cullinane mentored a series of future entrepreneurs and software industry executives. One of the early executives was Andrew 'Flip' Filipowski, who later founded Platinum Technology, Inc.. Another was Robert Goldman who became the CEO of several public software companies including AICorp. Jon Nackerud was a co-founder of Relational Technology, Inc., formed to commercialize the Ingres database management system. Prior to becoming a public company in 1978, the company's name was changed to Cullinane Database Systems, Inc. The company changed its name again to Cullinet Software in 1983, partly because John Cullinane wanted to distance his name from the personal connection to the business when he turned the company over to Bob Goldman, and also in a nod to the importance of computer networking (as evidenced by the company's simultaneous acquisition of Computer Pictures, whose microcomputer-based desktop system linked to IDMS data). Joe McNay, a board member, was particularly important regarding the company's IPO, the first ever in the software products industry. Greylock purchased some shares from John Cullinane in 1977, less than a year before the company was to go public. It was to be the early foundation on which their Greylock's software technology investment prowess rested. It was Greylock’s first investment in a software company.
Cullinane's public offering was of note as it was the first successful offering of a pure software products company ever and the first software company Hambrecht & Quist ever took public. Cullinet was also the first software company to have a billion dollar valuation, and the first to do a Super Bowl advertisement. Cullinane Database Systems, Inc., went public in 1978. On April 27, 1982 the company became the first computer software firm to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange and later, the first to become a component stock of the S&P 500 Index. However, two quarters after the company went public IBM introduced its 4300 series. Its salesmen told all mutual clients that IDMS didn't run on the 4300 series and that all IBM software of the future would be built with IMS/DL1. This caused a major problem as every IDMS customer went ballistic and every prospect went on hold. The company only had three months to solve this marketing problem and technical problem, and remarkably, they did. Technically, it only required the modification of one instruction to get IDMS running on a 4300. The solution to the company's revenue problem turned out to be its new Integrated Data Dictionary. By moving very fast, the company used it to put IBM on the defensive and made its numbers, no small accomplishment. It then went from winning one out five competitions to winning four out five and this fueled its growth.
Beginning in 1979, in an attempt to promote less dependence on the database sales alone, Cullinane fully integrated financial and manufacturing applications with IDMS and decision support systems, another first. The company acquired financial applications from McCormack & Dodge ("M&D"), a financial software company (acquired by Dun & Bradstreet later in 1983) and completely rewrote them using IDMS. They also acquired an MRP system from Rath & Strong and completely rewrote it using IDMS. Thus, Cullinet had a suite of integrated financial and manufacturing systems (called CIMS Cullinet Integrated Manufacturing System), the first on-line database driven applications, and was a major competitor in what is now called ERP. The company had become a software powerhouse. Eventually, it acquired a small Boston-based company called Computer Pictures whose graphics-focused decision support system TrendSpotter had already been integrated with IDMS and was very successful. This team developed Goldengate, a Lotus Symphony-like PC product.
Goldengate was a part of Cullinet's flawed ICMS (Information Center Management System). The promise of ICMS was the ability to move data between the mainframe and PC desktop. Apple Computer was supposed to do the same for the Apple Lisa, but never delivered. ICMS was unveiled in 1983 as part of a splashy 20+ city closed circuit TV broadcast that focused on IDMS/R and fueled the market for Cullinet for the next two years, but it was obvious that it was getting harder to maintain its unbroken string of quarters with sales and earnings in excess of 50%.
The company should have developed PC based IDMS development tools, instead. Ironically, it had the technology under development which was later to become the foundation of PowerBuilder at Powersoft. In fairness, many failures mark the landscape in that space and era including the Ovation product introduced with great fanfare by Ovation Technologies in a race with Lotus's Symphony suite attempting to create the early office suites dominated by Microsoft Corp.
Goldengate was built pre-Windows, which was expensive for Cullinet because of all the permutations and combinations of PC hardware and memory configurations.
In 1986-87, Chapman attempted to move the company to the more and more powerful minicomputers such as Digital Equipment Corporation's VAX line of computers. In the process, Cullinet acquired some very questionable VAX companies, but one had an outstanding relational DBMS. By then it was too late — the company's $50 million of cash had been spent.
In 1988, John Cullinane returned to Cullinet, fired Chapman and tried to salvage the company. By repositioning the company's product line with a new product called Enterprise Generator, he solved the open architecture problem and the company was able to return to profitability by the fourth quarter, which made it possible to negotiate a deal with Charles Wang, head of Computer Associates.
In 1989, Wang bought the company for $330 million in stock. It was a good deal for investors, which was reflected in the fact that shares of CA increased in value at least tenfold during the 1990s. It was a good deal for John Cullinane, too.
Much later, CA Technologies (formerly CA, Inc. and Computer Associates International, Inc.) still marketed and supported the CA IDMS relational database system for IBM z/OS, z/VSE and z/VM, Fujitsu Siemens BS2000/OSD, Linux (CA IDMS Server), UNIX (CA IDMS Server) and Windows (CA IDMS Server).
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