Altran Praxis

Altran UK (formerly known as Altran Praxis, Praxis High Integrity Systems, Praxis Critical Systems, Altran Xype, Xype and Altran Technologies) was a division of parent company Altran. Altran Praxis was a British software house that specialised in critical systems. ^[1] This role is continued under the banner of high-tech engineering consultancy services provided by the rest of the Altran group.

The division formerly known as Praxis (the critical systems specialists) was based in SouthGate, Bath, England, close to Bath Spa railway station, and also had offices in London, Loughborough, Paris, Sophia Antipolis, and Bangalore.

History

Praxis Systems

The company Praxis Systems Limited was founded by Martyn Thomas and David Bean in 1983: ^[2] it was incorporated on 1 June 1983 and commenced business on 1 July 1983, presenting itself as a software engineering company. On 28 June 1985 it became a Public limited company Praxis Systems plc. In 1987, a company group structure was created under the renamed company Praxis plc. ^[3]

Until 1988, Praxis was owned almost entirely by its staff, and provided a staff profit-sharing scheme. ^[4] In 1988 Praxis obtained venture capital finance in order to provide funds for future acquisitions and working capital for continued growth. On 27 November 1992 Praxis was acquired by Deloitte Consulting (then known as Touche Ross), an international firm of accountants and management consultants. ^[5] The business continued to operate under the Praxis name. ^[6]

Praxis' first project was to develop a field trial Unix subsystem embedded in the mainframe operating system ICL VME, named VNS, which ICL later developed into the VME/X and OpenVME versions of the mainframe operating system. ^{[3] [7]}

In the late 1980s and 1990s, Praxis Syatems commercialised and supported the electronic hardware description language ELLA used to describe, verify and manage very-large-scale integration circuit designs. ^{[8] [3]}

A distinguishing feature of the former Praxis office's is its extensive use of formal methods such as the Z notation and the SPARK toolset (acquired through the takeover of the developers Program Validation Limited in 1994) in its approach to improving the reliability of software engineering. ^[9] A major project using Z has been an enhancement for the United Kingdom's National Air Traffic Services (NATS). ^{[10] [11]}

Critical systems division purchase by Altran

The critical systems division was acquired by the Altran Group in 1997. ^[12] The commercial and industrial systems division ^[3] was retained by Deloitte, but the use of the Praxis name by Deloitte ceased soon thereafter. ^[6]

In 2004, Praxis Critical Systems and HIS Consulting merged to form Praxis High Integrity Systems. In January 2010, the company was merged with SC2 by Altran to form Altran Praxis. ^[13] The company has since been rebranded to Altran along with Altran Xype and Altran Technologies. In December 2012, AdaCore along with Altran Praxis released SPARK Pro 11. ^[14] In 2013, Altran acquired Sentaca, a specialty telecoms consultancy.^{[ citation needed ]}

See also

• Anthony Hall, a former employee, now a consultant
• IPSE (Praxis was a key participant in the influential IPSE2.5 project)

References

1. "Overview". Altran Group. Archived from the original on 17 May 2014.
2. Sinfield, Jonathan (30 May 2018). "Interview with Martyn Thomas CBE". Archives of IT. Retrieved 24 February 2026.
3. "Annual Review 1987" (PDF). PRAXIS plc. 1987. Retrieved 16 October 2025.
4. "A profitable route to participation". Financial Times. 22 May 1984. p. 23. Retrieved 24 February 2026.
5. "Touche Ross bids for Praxis". Financial Times. 20 November 1992. p. 23. Retrieved 24 February 2026.
6. "Welcome to Praxis". Praxis plc. October 1997. Archived from the original on 5 July 1998.
7. Coates, P. (1993). "VME-X: Making VME Open" (PDF). ICL Technical Journal. ICL: 473. ISSN   0142-1557. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 7 November 2015.
8. "Praxis of Bath Wins worldwide distribution for Ella From Ecad Inc". Tech Monitor. GlobalData. 16 November 1987. Retrieved 16 October 2025.
9. Publications, Praxis.
10. NATS pioneers biggest ATC advance since radar ^{[ permanent dead link ]}, NATS, 2007.
11. Antony Savvas, NATS claims the biggest air traffic control innovation since radar, Computer Weekly , 7 March 2007.
12. "Martyn Thomas CBE interviewed by Jonathan Sinfield (transcript)" (PDF). Archives of IT. 30 May 2018. AIT/053. Retrieved 1 March 2026.
13. "Corporate : History". Altran Praxis. January 2010. Archived from the original on 27 January 2010.
14. "AdaCore and Altran Praxis Release SPARK Pro 11". Dr. Dobb's. Retrieved 4 September 2018.