Vision Solutions Partners with Asian Banking ISV Silverlake Group
July 16, 2007 Timothy Prickett Morgan
High availability and data replication software maker Vision Solutions said last week that it has signed a partnership with The Silverlake Group that will help Vision expand its presence in the Asia/Pacific region while also offering HA software to Silverlake’s banking customers. Vision, of course, is the conglomeration of the formerly independent Vision Solutions, iTera, and Lakeview Technology, who all sold HA and data replication software for the i5/OS and OS/400 platform. Private equity firm Thoma Cressey Bravo has acquired all three firms over the past nine months, giving it a dominant position when it comes to HA software on the System i. Silverlake probably gets its name from the original code name of the AS/400, which was named after Silver Lake in downtown Rochester, Minnesota, which is where the AS/400, iSeries, and System i is designed and manufactured. The company was founded soon after the AS/400 was launched–in 1989, to be specific–and is based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Silverlake has grown from 15 employees to over 1,000 in those two decades, and now has offices in Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Brunei, China, the Philipines, and Hungary. The company also has a development office located in the System i’s hometown of Rochester. Silverlake has a number of application suites, including the Silverlake Integrated Banking Solution for banking, the Silverlake Integrated Insurance System and Silverlake Branch Collection System for insurance companies, the Silverlake Universal Broking System for running a stock brokerage, PROFIT for retail merchandizing, the Intelligent Human Resources Planning for employee management, and the Intelligent Crew Management System for managing airline crews specifically. The company’s software supports i5/OS and OS/400 as well as Windows and sometimes Linux. Vision is particularly keen on this partnership because it wants to strengthen its coverage in Asia and because Silverlake is itself pushing into the economic powerhouses of China and India. “Vision’s partnership with Silverlake, the market leader in the Southeast Asian banking sector, significantly strengthens our banking portfolio in Asia and delivers a true best-of-breed solution to a market that depends on uninterrupted 24×7 system access,” explained David Wegman, senior vice president of integrated accounts at Vision in a statement accompanying the announcement of the partnership with Silverlake. “By strategically aligning our high availability solution capabilities and market coverage with Silverlake’s banking solution portfolio and their planned expansion into China and India, we are increasing our commitment to the Asian System i market and creating substantial opportunities.” Vision has two dozen partners in the Asia/Pacific region distributing its various HA and replication software for the System i platform. RELATED STORIES Vision’s Product Plans Change Little Post Lakeview Vision Solutions Acquires HA Rival Lakeview Technology Vision Committed to Developing ORION Vision Begins Product Transition with iTera HA 5.0 Thoma Cressey Strikes Again: Buys iTera to Merge with Vision Solutions Venture Capitalist Thoma Cressey Acquires Vision Solutions
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