BVRP

Last updated

BVRP Software SA [1] is a Paris-based software company that has purchased American software companies. [2] [3]

Contents

A 2007 acquisition placed it, according to one report, as then being the sixth largest publisher of consumer software in the United States. [4]

History

BVRP was started in 1984 by "Bruno Vanryb and Roger Politis, sound engineers." [5] The company's first offering was a modem-based business phone number service, "a database program called Directory."

When their Paris-based company partnered with Hayes Microcomputer Products they increased their range beyond Paris and France "to 62 other countries."

Vanryb claimed that French venture capital companies "prefer to invest in bigger companies, they don't like startups" [5] so he turned to U.S. sources, leading to AvanQuest and VCOM.

Avanquest

Avanquest is a marketing name for PC software such as Avanquest Fix-It Utilities 11 Professional, a collection of optimization tools. [6] In mid 2003 parent company BVRP expanded the Avanquest identity to be Avanquest Global Software Publishing, [7] which it then used to market in Japan and Spain. [8] With Avanquest's 2007 acquisition of Nova Development Corp., "a publisher focusing on the consumer market," BVRP's portfolio reportedly became the fifth or sixth largest publisher of consumer software in the United States. [4] [9] [10]

In 2019, Avanquest had 83 million euro in revenue[footnote] from three main segments:

VCOM (V Communications)

Memory Commander is an early DOS memory manager made by V Communications similar to the likes of QEMM, Helix Netroom or 386MAX, though much more capable. It allowed up to 904KB of conventional memory by utilizing the memory virtualization features of i386 to remap the Upper memory area into the High memory area in addition to automatically managing drivers and TSRs. [14] [15]

System Commander was introduced in 1993 by V Communications, [16] [17] sometimes referred to as VCOM. [3] [18]

System Commander included Partition Commander . With the 2005 purchase by BVRP of this company, they were able to compete with PowerQuest (PQ) and its PartitionMagic. PQ's bundle of software included PQboot, competing with System Commander.

Although PowerQuest was acquired by Symantec, which retired this software in 2009, rather than update it to run under Windows Vista, System Commander and Partition Commander have a market: competitor Paragon Software Group released a major new upgrade in 2015. [19]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">3Com</span> Former American maker of computer network products

3Com Corporation was an American digital electronics manufacturer best known for its computer network products. The company was co-founded in 1979 by Robert Metcalfe, Howard Charney and others. Bill Krause joined as President in 1981. Metcalfe explained the name 3Com was a contraction of "Computer Communication Compatibility", with its focus on Ethernet technology that he had co-invented, which enabled the networking of computers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gen Digital</span> Multinational software company

Gen Digital Inc. is a multinational software company co-headquartered in Tempe, Arizona and Prague, Czech Republic. The company provides cybersecurity software and services. Gen is a Fortune 500 company and a member of the S&P 500 stock-market index. The company also has development centers in Pune, Chennai and Bangalore. Its portfolio includes Norton, Avast, LifeLock, Avira, AVG, ReputationDefender, and CCleaner.

Norton AntiVirus is an anti-virus or anti-malware software product founded by Peter Norton, developed and distributed by Symantec since 1990 as part of its Norton family of computer security products. It uses signatures and heuristics to identify viruses. Other features included in it are e-mail spam filtering and phishing protection.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AST Research</span> American computer manufacturer (1980–1999)

AST Research, Inc., later doing business as AST Computer, was a personal computer manufacturer. It was founded in 1980 in Irvine, California, by Albert Wong, Safi Qureshey, and Thomas Yuen, as an initialism of their first names. In the 1980s, AST designed add-on expansion cards, and evolved toward the 1990s into a major personal computer manufacturer. AST was acquired by Samsung Electronics in 1997 but was de facto closed in 1999 due to a series of losses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Avast</span> Czech security software company

Avast Software s.r.o. is a Czech multinational cybersecurity software company headquartered in Prague, Czech Republic, that researches and develops computer security software, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. Avast has more than 435 million monthly active users and the second largest market share among anti-malware application vendors worldwide as of April 2020. The company has approximately 1,700 employees across its 25 offices worldwide. In July 2021, NortonLifeLock, an American cybersecurity company, announced that it was in talks to merge with Avast Software. In August 2021, Avast's board of directors agreed to an offer of US$8 billion.

Cirrus Logic Inc. is an American fabless semiconductor supplier that specializes in analog, mixed-signal, and audio DSP integrated circuits (ICs). Since 1998, the company's headquarters have been in Austin, Texas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Delrina</span> Canadian software company founded in 1988

Delrina Corporation was an electronic form company in Canada that was acquired by the American software firm Symantec in 1995. The company was best known for WinFax, a software package which enabled computers equipped with fax modems to transmit copies of documents to standalone fax machines or other similarly equipped computers. It also sold PerForm and FormFlow.

WinFax is a discontinued Microsoft Windows-based software product designed to let computers equipped with fax-modems communicate directly to stand-alone fax machines, or other similarly equipped computers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Personal Internet Communicator</span>

The Personal Internet Communicator (PIC) is a consumer device released by AMD in 2004 to allow people in emerging countries access to the internet. Originally part of AMD's 50x15 Initiative, the PIC has been deployed by Internet service providers (ISPs) in several developing countries. It is based on an AMD Geode CPU and uses Microsoft Windows CE and Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lavasoft</span> Software company of Canada

Adaware, formerly known as Lavasoft, is a software development company that produces spyware and malware detection software, including Adaware. It operates as a subsidiary of Avanquest, a division of Claranova.

Microcom, Inc., was a major modem vendor during the 1980s, although never as popular as the "big three", Hayes, U.S. Robotics (USR) and Telebit. Nevertheless, Microcom holds an important place in modem history for introducing the MNP error-correction and compression protocols, which were widely used under license by most modem manufacturers in the 1990s. The company went public in 1987. Compaq purchased publicly outstanding shares of the company in 1997.

System Commander is a graphical boot manager/loader software application developed by VCOM. The software allowed for multiple operating systems to be installed onto a machine at once, providing a menu from which the user selected the operating system they wished to boot from. Other software with similar functionality includes NTLDR, LILO, GRUB, and Graphical Boot Manager. One of its components was named Partition Commander.

Central Point Software, Inc. was a leading software utilities maker for the PC market, supplying utilities software for the DOS and Microsoft Windows markets. It also made Apple II copy programs. Through a series of mergers, the company was ultimately acquired by Symantec in 1994.

Webroot Inc. is an American privately-held cybersecurity software company that provides Internet security for consumers and businesses. The company was founded in Boulder, Colorado, US, and is now headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado, and has US operations in San Mateo and San Diego, and globally in Australia, Austria, Ireland, Japan and the United Kingdom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paragon Publishing</span> Magazine publisher in the United Kingdom

Paragon Publishing Ltd was a magazine publisher in the UK, which published computer games and other entertainment titles from 1991 to 2003.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AVG Technologies</span> Brand of cybersecurity, privacy, performance and utility applications

AVG Technologies is a brand of cybersecurity, privacy, performance and utility software applications for desktop computers and mobile devices developed by Avast, a part of Gen Digital. AVG was a cybersecurity software company founded in 1991 and it merged into Avast following an acquisition in 2017. It typically offers freeware, earning revenues from advertisers and from users that upgrade to paid versions for access to more features.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TouchStone Software</span>

TouchStone Software Corporation, Inc., founded in 1982, is an American software developer for the personal computer (PC) industry, specializing in system update technology. It also owns and operates a network of Internet Web properties. Based in Marco Island, Florida, the company was a subsidiary of Phoenix Technologies until 2010.

Bruno Vanryb was the BV of BVRP, a Paris-based company he co-founded with Roger Politis in 1984. He was a French entrepreneur . He was the founder and former CEO of Avanquest, a worldwide software company. He headed Be Brave, a consultancy firm.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christina Seelye</span>

Christina Seelye is an American entrepreneur. She is the CEO and founder of video game publisher Maximum Games, and its subsidiaries Modus Games and Modus Studios.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">IBM PCradio</span> Notebook computer released in 1991

The PCradio was a notebook computer released by International Business Machines (IBM) in late 1991. Designed primarily for mobile workers such as service technicians, salespersons and public safety workers, the PCradio featured a ruggedized build with no internal hard disk drive and was optioned with either a cellular or ARDIS RF modem, in addition to a standard landline modem.

References

  1. "Sautter Says He Won't Backtrack on France's Financial Reforms". The Wall Street Journal . November 29, 1999. Bruno Vanryb, chief executive of BVRP Software SA
  2. "Tech Stock Boost Market". The Wall Street Journal. July 7, 2000. BVRP advanced 1.70 euros to 44 euros after its purchase of a U.S. software company
  3. 1 2 "V Communications acquired by Parisian firm". BizJournals.com (Silicon Valley/San Jose). February 1, 2005.
  4. 1 2 Marc Ferranti (2007). "Avanquest acquires software publisher Nova". NetworkWorld .
  5. 1 2 Mitchel Martin (November 22, 1993). "French Entrepreneurs Cash In on Fax Modems". The New York Times .
  6. "Avanquest Fix-It Utilities 11 Professional". PC Magazine . December 3, 2010.
  7. "Avanquest offers international software publishing". InfoWorld . June 18, 2003.
  8. "Avanquest software network expands into Japan, Spain". InfoWorld. January 13, 2004.
  9. "Avanquest acquires software publisher Nova". InfoWorld. January 17, 2007. With the acquisition, Avanquest becomes one of the top five consumer software companies in the U.S.
  10. WSJ-reported French currency conversion matters of 2006/2007 made the math challenging
  11. "adaware: the best FREE Antivirus & Ad Blocker period". Adaware. Retrieved January 21, 2021.
  12. "Soda PDF - PDF Software to Create, Convert, Edit and Sign Files". www.sodapdf.com. Retrieved January 21, 2021.
  13. "inPixio® - Logiciels de photo". inPixio France. Retrieved January 21, 2021.
  14. "Reliability and Service: The Best & Worst" (PDF). PC World. June 1994. p. 191.
  15. "IBM turns PC division over to Cannavino". InfoWorld. Vol. 13, no. 49. InfoWorld Media Group, Inc. December 9, 1991. p. 69.
  16. Michel Marriott (May 21, 1998). "When One Operating System Just Can't Satisfy a Customer". The New York Times.
  17. J. D. Biersdorfer (October 10, 2006). "Rearranging Rooms on the Hard Drive". The New York Times.
  18. "BVRP - V Communications". February 2005. V Communications is a .. VCOM
  19. Edward Mendelson (January 6, 2015). "Paragon Hard Disk Manager 15 Professional Review". PC Magazine.