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Progress Software history
Progress Software company history timeline
The official founding of the company was in December 1981 under the name of Data Language Corporation.
In 1981 UNIX was virtually unknown outside academic circles.
Progress Software was co-founded by several MIT graduates, including Joseph W. Alsop, in 1981.
The founders moved into their office in February of 1982.
The company's July, 1983 business plan had predicted sales of $11 million.
The initial name of the product was SPECTRUM. The goal was to introduce the first version of SPECTRUM prior to the November, 1983 Comdex show.
To create a product in time for the November, 1983 show, the team had to cut some corners.
The company planned to make its first shipments in January, 1984.
Data Language Corporation first shipped for revenue in August 1984, eight months behind schedule.
In fiscal year 1985, its first full year of shipments, sales totaled $3.4 million.
In early 1987, Joe visited several European distributors to see if he could sort things out.
Initially called Data Language Corporation (DLC), the company changed its name in 1987 to match that of its flagship product, Progress.
By the beginning of 1988, it had found acceptance in the business community.
In 1989 Progress was also ranked seventh on the New England Business list of the 100 fastest-growing private and public companies in that region.
11 Progress Software Press Release, June 29, 1990
By 1990 Unix had become a commercially popular operating system because it was not restricted to particular computer brands and functioned on a multiple-user network.
In 1991 Progress expanded its cross-platform reach after agreeing with Micro Decisionware Inc. to develop and market a link from the PROGRESS 4GL and RDBMS to IBM host environments that could connect to Micro Decisionware's database.
For its 1991 fiscal year, Progress's earnings rose 58 percent to $6 million on revenues that jumped 46 percent to $58.3 million.
In 1991, the company sold 1,380,000 shares of stock through an IPO. Of this total, 780.000 shares were sold on behalf of the company.
Over the course often years (leading up to the IPO in 1991), this represents a return of approximately 48%, using Joe's estimate of $450,000 as their investment into the business.
In 1992 Progress and Object Design, Inc. agreed to jointly develop and market software linking the PROGRESS 4GL to Object Design's ObjectStore object-oriented database management system.
For fiscal 1992 Progress's earnings mushroomed 58 percent to $9.61 million on revenues which leaped 46 percent to $85 million.
By the close of 1992 the global operations of Progress had been expanded to 12 subsidiaries and 34 distributors operating in more than 50 countries.
Delays in the delivery of PROGRESS Version 7 pushed the company's stock into the mid-30s range in 1993 before the new operating system was released late that year in Progress's first worldwide marketing initiative and global positioning of its product line.
By the end of the year Progress had 15 international subsidiaries and the company was ranked 82nd on Fortune magazine's list of America's 100 fastest-growing companies and 86th on Forbes 1993 list of the 200 best small publicly traded companies.
In June 1994 Progress formed a joint venture subsidiary with Nissho Iwai Corporation, one of Japan's largest diversified general trading companies.
For the year Progress's sales growth climbed to 29 percent, and earnings rose 16 percent to $16.68 million on revenues of $180.13 million (compared to 1994 when the company's stock fluctuated from a high of $56.50 to a low of $27.25 and Progress earned $16.9 million on revenues of $139.2 million).
Clyde Kessel left the company in the summer of 1994.
In June 1995 Progress opened a centralized technical support facility in Rotterdam, The Netherlands to serve its operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
In November 1995 Progress released its PROGRESS Version 8 ADE, making client/server application development easier and faster by capitalizing on the power of Object-Oriented (OO) programming, a component-based visual programming development environment.
With more 250,000 product licenses worldwide and a network of 18 international subsidiaries and 33 distributors operating in 60 countries, Progress entered 1995 by substantially expanding its product line through a signficant acquisition.
The Version 8 RDBMS was expected to be released in early 1996.
In early 1996 Progress began initial steps to become a major World Wide Web supplier of products by using the Web to market its products, offering buyers the opportunity to secure and order delivery of products.
In early 1996 the Crescent Division also took initial steps to use the Internet for marketing purposes and launched Code Depot, a on-line storefront designed to serve the needs of VB application programmers.
In October 2002, Progress Software acquired Boston based eXcelon Corporation (Nasdaq: EXLN, formerly Object Design, Nasdaq: ODIS) for approximately US$24 Million. eXcelon created an XML IDE, Stylus Studio, which is now marketed by Progress Software.
In December 2003, Progress Software acquired DataDirect Technologies Ltd. for $88 million.
In 2004, Progress Software bought out Persistence Software for $16 million.
In 2005, Progress acquired Apama and entered the Complex event processing Space.
In March 2006, Progress Software acquired Neon Systems (Nasdaq: NEON), which offers a set of capabilities for companies seeking to modernize existing 3270 applications.
In 2010, Progress Software acquired the Santa Clara-based Savvion Inc., a provider of Business Process Management technology.
In April 2011, Progress Software sold their SWIFT integration product "ADS" (formally Iona's "Artix Data Services") to C24 Technologies Ltd (UK). The product was re-branded to its former name "Integration Objects".
In April 2012, Progress announced strategy shift to become a much more narrowly focused, specialist vendor, looking to sell or decommission most of their existing products.
In June 2013, Software AG acquired Apama activities from Progress Software.
In June 2014, Progress Software announced that it had acquired Cincinnati-based Modulus, a company providing a Node.js and MongoDB cloud platform.
On May 1, 2019, Progress Software completed the acquisition of Ipswitch, Inc., an IT management software developer for small and medium sized businesses, well known for its MFT Software MOVEit Automation and MOVEit Transfer.
The acquisition is expected to be completed by October of 2020.
The acquisition was completed on 01 November 2021.
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Progress Software competitors
| Company name | Founded date | Revenue | Employee size | Job openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Citrix | 1989 | $3.2B | 9,000 | 6 |
| VMware | 1998 | $13.4B | 31,000 | 2 |
| Sybase | 1991 | - | 3,576 | - |
| Quest Software | 1987 | $857.4M | 3,850 | - |
| Micro Focus (US), Inc. | 1976 | $3.0B | 12,000 | - |
| Sophos | 1996 | $65.2M | 3,600 | 37 |
| SugarCRM | 2004 | $60.0M | 450 | 18 |
| Egnyte | 2007 | $100.0M | 684 | 50 |
| IONA Technologies | 1991 | $33.8M | 555 | - |
| Software AG | 1969 | $290.0M | 826 | 1 |
Progress Software history FAQs
Zippia gives an in-depth look into the details of Progress Software, including salaries, political affiliations, employee data, and more, in order to inform job seekers about Progress Software. The employee data is based on information from people who have self-reported their past or current employments at Progress Software. The data on this page is also based on data sources collected from public and open data sources on the Internet and other locations, as well as proprietary data we licensed from other companies. Sources of data may include, but are not limited to, the BLS, company filings, estimates based on those filings, H1B filings, and other public and private datasets. While we have made attempts to ensure that the information displayed are correct, Zippia is not responsible for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from the use of this information. None of the information on this page has been provided or approved by Progress Software. The data presented on this page does not represent the view of Progress Software and its employees or that of Zippia.
Progress Software may also be known as or be related to Progress Software Corp, Progress Software Corporation, Progress Software, PROGRESS SOFTWARE CORP MA, Data Language Corporation and Rollbase (acquired by Progress).