webMethods was an enterprise software company focused on application integration, business process integration and B2B partner integration. Founded in 1996, the company sold systems for organizations to use
web services to connect software applications over the Internet. In 2000, the company stock shares rose over 500% the first day it was publicly traded.
In 2007 webMethods was acquired by
Software AG
Founded in 1969, Software AG is an enterprise software company with over 10,000 enterprise customers in over 70 countries. The company is the second largest software vendor in Germany, and the seventh largest in Europe. Software AG is traded on t ...
for $546 million and was made a subsidiary. By 2010 the webMethods division accounted for almost half of the parent company's revenues.
Software AG retained the webMethods name, and uses it as a brand to identify a software suite encompassing process improvement,
service-oriented architecture
In software engineering, service-oriented architecture (SOA) is an architectural style that focuses on discrete services instead of a monolithic design. By consequence, it is also applied in the field of software design where services are provide ...
(SOA), IT modernization and business and partner integration.
History
The company was founded in 1996 by married couple Phillip Merrick (who was chief executive) and Caren Merrick (who was vice president for marketing using the name Caren DeWitt at the time) to use Web standards such as
Hypertext Transfer Protocol
The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, ...
(HTTP) and (later)
XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...
to allow software applications to communicate with one another in real time. This type of technology would later be referred to as "
web services". The company's first product, called the Web Automation Server was released in August 1996; this was later superseded by the
WebMethods Integration Server
webMethods was an enterprise software company focused on application integration, business process integration and B2B partner integration. Founded in 1996, the company sold systems for organizations to use web services to connect software app ...
, which was the company's first product to see significant commercial use.
Initially, the founders used their savings and credit cards to keep the company operating in their house in
Fairfax, Virginia
The City of Fairfax ( ), colloquially known as Fairfax City, Downtown Fairfax, Old Town Fairfax, Fairfax Courthouse, FFX, or simply Fairfax, is an independent city (United States), independent city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth ...
.
By 1999 the company had clients such as
DHL Express
DHL is an American founded, German logistics company providing courier, package delivery and express mail service, which is a division of the German logistics firm Deutsche Post. The company group delivers over 1.8 billion parcels per year. DHL ...
,
Dell
Dell is an American based technology company. It develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Dell is owned by its parent company, Dell Technologies.
Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data ...
,
Dun & Bradstreet
The Dun & Bradstreet Corporation is an American company that provides commercial data, analytics, and insights for businesses. Headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, the company offers a wide range of products and services for risk and financia ...
and
Hewlett-Packard
The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...
, and had completed several rounds of venture capital investment.
[webMethods, Inc. S-1 Registration Statement](_blank)
/ref>
Mayfield Fund
Mayfield, also known as Mayfield Fund, is a US-based venture capital firm that focuses on early-stage to growth-stage investments in enterprise and consumer technology companies. Founded in 1969 and based in Menlo Park, California, it is one of S ...
and FBR Technology Venture Partners (an arm of Friedman Billings Ramsey
Arlington Asset Investment Corp. is a mortgage real estate investment trust headquartered in McLean, Virginia.
The company is an investment firm that focuses primarily on investing in mortgage related assets and residential real estate. The comp ...
) were among investors.
In March 1999 the company entered into a partnership with SAP AG
Sap is a fluid transported in xylem cells (vessel elements or tracheids) or phloem sieve tube elements of a plant. These cells transport water and nutrients throughout the plant.
Sap is distinct from latex, resin, or cell sap; it is a sepa ...
to create an SAP-focused integration product called the SAP Business Connector
SAP Business Connector (also known as "SAP BC") is a re-branded version/restricted licence version of webMethods Integration Server provided by SAP as a middleware solution for their R/3 product. It was developed jointly by webMethods and SAP in a ...
. The company's revenue went from around $500,000 in 1997 to $14 million in 1999 and $202 million in 2001.
In February 2000, webMethods had its initial public offering
An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...
(IPO) on the NASDAQ
The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...
exchange. Just before the offering, the share price rose from its planned $13 to $35, and in its first day of trading, closed over $212 per share. The company raised only $175 million, while being valued at almost $7 billion. Although the term "unicorn
The unicorn is a legendary creature that has been described since antiquity as a beast with a single large, pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead.
In European literature and art, the unicorn has for the last thousand years o ...
" was not yet used, one analyst said "The market is kind of foaming at the mouth on three-letter buzzwords, like B2B and XML".
The quick rise of its share price is given as an example of the excess of the dot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet.
Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...
.
The IPO allowed webMethods in April 2000 to acquire Premier Software Technologies, Inc. and TransLink Software, Inc., and in August 2000 to acquire Active Software for an estimated $1.3 billion in stock shares.["webMethods Acquires Active Software"](_blank)
/ref>
Active Software, a public company based in Santa Clara, California
Santa Clara (; Spanish for " Saint Clare") is a city in Santa Clara County, California. The city's population was 127,647 at the 2020 census, making it the eighth-most populous city in the Bay Area. Located in the southern Bay Area, the cit ...
and founded in 1994, had acquired Alier Inc., TransLink Software Inc. and Premier Software Technologies Inc.
In January, 2001, webMethods acquired IntelliFrame Corporation, which had been part of Computer Network Technology Corporation, for about $31 million.
While revenues grew, the company posted continuing operating losses due to the early 2000s recession
The early 2000s recession was a decline in economic activity which mainly occurred in developed countries. The recession affected the European Union during 2000 and 2001 and the United States from March to November 2001. The UK, Canada and Aus ...
following the bursting of the dot-com bubble through 2002.
Although its share price declined sharply from its peak, company executives, directors and investors still made large profits on their shares.
In October, 2003, the company announced it acquired three smaller companies in the integration market, for a combined estimated value of $32 million.
The Mind Electric developed a technology called Glue, and its founder Graham Glass became the webMethods chief technical officer.
The Dante Group developed software for business activity monitoring
Business activity monitoring (BAM) is software that aids the monitoring of business activities which are implemented in computer systems.
The term was originally coined by analysts at Gartner, Inc. and refers to the aggregation, analysis, and pr ...
(BAM).
The former DataChannel assets from Netegrity were used in a portal.
Deloitte
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (), commonly referred to as Deloitte, is an international professional services network headquartered in London, England. Deloitte is the largest professional services network by revenue and number of profession ...
estimated webMethods was the fourth fastest growing technology company in North America in 2003, on the Deloitte Fast 500
The Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Awards are run and moderated by international professional services group Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited. They recognize the 500 fastest-growing technology companies in regions around the world. Winners include ...
.
By October, 2004, after revenues declined and losses rose, Phillip Merrick was replaced as CEO by David Mitchell.
In August, 2006, webMethods acquired Cerebra, a privately held company that developed metadata management software.
In September, 2006, webMethods acquired Infravio (which developed a software registry) for $38 million.
The company was an early developer and promoter of standards for web service technologies, having worked on XML-RPC
XML-RPC is a remote procedure call (RPC) protocol which uses XML to encode its calls and HTTP as a transport mechanism.Simon St. Laurent, Joe Johnston, Edd Dumbill. (June 2001) ''Programming Web Services with XML-RPC.'' O'Reilly. First Edition. ...
, a precursor to SOAP
Soap is a salt of a fatty acid used in a variety of cleansing and lubricating products. In a domestic setting, soaps are surfactants usually used for washing, bathing, and other types of housekeeping. In industrial settings, soaps are use ...
, and developed Web Interface Definition Language, a precursor to the Web Services Description Language
The Web Services Description Language (WSDL ) is an XML-based interface description language that is used for describing the functionality offered by a web service. The acronym is also used for any specific WSDL description of a web service (also ...
standard.["Using WDSL in SOAP Applications"](_blank)
/ref>
As part of a larger trend of consolidation, Software AG
Founded in 1969, Software AG is an enterprise software company with over 10,000 enterprise customers in over 70 countries. The company is the second largest software vendor in Germany, and the seventh largest in Europe. Software AG is traded on t ...
(based in Darmstadt
Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it th ...
, Germany) bid to acquire webMethods in April 2007 for an estimated $546 million in cash.
The offer price was more than 25% over the market price of its shares, and came one day after activist shareholders Augustus Oliver and Clifford Press disclosed a 6% stake and claimed the company was under-valued.
Although speculation persisted that a competitor might make a higher bid, the deal closed in June, 2007.
The brand webMethods was retained, effectively making webMethods its flagship product line, immediately doubling Software AG revenues in North America.
WebMethods version 8.0 was released in 2009, supplemented with other Software AG products such as Centrasite, Tamino and EntireX
EntireX DCOM is a commercial implementation of Microsoft's Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) technology by Software AG for the Windows, AIX, HP/UX, Solaris, Linux, AS/400, z/OS, z/VM, and BS2000/OSD platforms.
Description
EntireX is a soft ...
. In 2010, the webMethods division of Software AG, known as business processes excellence (BPE) recorded $668 million (499 million Euros) in revenues and was a major contributor to company net income.
In 2011, Caren Merrick ran as a Republican
Republican can refer to:
Political ideology
* An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law.
** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
for the Virginia state senate, saying her history with webMethods made her a "jobs creator", but was defeated by Barbara Favola
Barbara A. Favola (born June 21, 1955) is an American politician from the Commonwealth of Virginia. A Democrat, she has served in the Senate of Virginia since 2011, representing the 31st District, encompassing portions of Arlington, Fairfax, an ...
.[{{Cite web , title= Caren Merrick for Virginia Senate , work= Campaign web site , url= http://carenmerrick.com/heavy-content-page , url-status= dead , archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110430141031/http://carenmerrick.com/heavy-content-page , archive-date= April 30, 2011 , access-date= November 22, 2021 ]
See also
*Middleware (distributed applications)
Middleware in the context of distributed applications is software that provides services beyond those provided by the operating system to enable the various components of a distributed system to communicate and manage data. Middleware supports an ...
References
External links
webMethods product page
webMethods Community
- part of Software AG's Tech Community
Defunct software companies of the United States
Software companies established in 1996
Software AG
2000 initial public offerings
2007 mergers and acquisitions
Companies based in Reston, Virginia