IONA Technologies

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IONA Technologies, Inc.
Company type Public
Nasdaq: IONA
Industry Computer software
Consulting
IT Services
Founded1991;33 years ago (1991)
Defunct2008 (2008)
FateAcquired
Headquarters
Dublin
,
Ireland
ProductsIONA Artix, Fuse ESB, Orbix, Orbacus
Website www.iona.com

IONA Technologies, Inc. was an Irish software company founded in 1991. It began as a campus company linked to Trinity College Dublin [1] had its headquarters in Dublin, and eventually also expanded its offices in Boston and Tokyo. It specialised in distributed service-oriented architecture (SOA) technology, its products connecting systems and applications by creating a network of services without requiring a centralised server or creating an information technology project. IONA was the first Irish company to float on the NASDAQ exchange. [2] It was valued at up to US$1.75 billion at its peak. It was one of the world's 10 largest software-only companies, and around 30 new ventures spun out from it. IONA was sold to Progress Software in 2008. [3]

Contents

History

Iona Technologies headquarters on Percy Place in Dublin, 1994 Iona Technologies headquarters main work area 1994.jpg
Iona Technologies headquarters on Percy Place in Dublin, 1994

In 1981, a Trinity College Dublin PhD student, Chris Horn, visited Stanford University, and met Andy Bechtolsheim, inventor of the Stanford University Network (SUN) workstation, and Bill Joy, and when they later went on to co-found Sun Microsystems, he began to talk to fellow academics about starting their own venture. Eventually, in 1991, IONA Technologies, was founded by Horn and fellow TCD academics Sean Baker and Annrai O’Toole, each of the three putting in 1,000 Irish pounds for starting capital. IONA received limited support from Trinity College, including an office with a desk and phone in a TCD innovation centre on Westland Row. [4]

Leadership

Horn was the first CEO and later also lead architect and developer for the Orbix product, launched in 1992. The firm was strategically focused on object-oriented middleware software, but initially produced training, device drivers and ran backups. [4] IONA found the Irish market (business expansion schemes, banks, venture capital firms) unwilling to invest, secured some IDA Ireland support, grew. After showcasing their first product in the US in 1992, they secured a minority investment from Sun Microsystems in December 1993, 600,000 US dollars for 25% of the equity.

Despite having just 11 staff, they then sold a multi-national network management system to Motorola, and then a solution to Boeing, [4] and were able to become the first Irish company to float on the NASDAQ, [2] achieving the fifth largest debut on that exchange to date. [3]

At peak the company reached a market valuation of US$1.75 billion. [3] Horn stepped down from the CEO role in 2000, but remained as a non-executive director; he returned to the CEO role from 2003 to 2005, after the "dotcom crash".

On 25 June 2008 it was announced that IONA would be acquired by Progress Software for about $162 million, the deal closing shortly thereafter. [5] [6] Over its lifetime, about 30 new companies had spun out from IONA. [4]

On 24 December 2012 Progress Software sold the IONA-related Orbix, Orbacus and Artix software product lines to Micro Focus International plc for $15 million. [7]

The open-source group was later spun out into its own entity, FuseSource Corp, which was acquired by Red Hat in 2012. This group consisted of individuals and technologies involved in the various open-source projects and communities, including those that joined as part of the acquisition of LogicBlaze.

Development standards

IONA was involved in the development of standards that are relevant to large-scale IT integration. IONA employed the Web service, Java, TMF and Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) families of standards in their products, and was involved in the following standards bodies:

Open source

IONA promoted both open-source and commercially licensed software, participated in several open source initiatives, and acquired LogicBlaze. [8] IONA was involved in the following open-source projects, and offered enterprise versions of the projects that are tested, certified and supported. [9] These became part of FuseSource Corp., now within Red Hat .

Products

IONA promotional pen, 2001 IONA pen.jpg
IONA promotional pen, 2001

IONA's initial integration products were built using the CORBA standard, and later products were built using Web services standards.

IONA's products include:

Related Research Articles

The Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) is a standard defined by the Object Management Group (OMG) designed to facilitate the communication of systems that are deployed on diverse platforms. CORBA enables collaboration between systems on different operating systems, programming languages, and computing hardware. CORBA uses an object-oriented model although the systems that use the CORBA do not have to be object-oriented. CORBA is an example of the distributed object paradigm.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">OpenStep</span> Defunct object-oriented application programming interface specification

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In distributed computing, an object request broker (ORB) is a concept of a middleware, which allows program calls to be made from one computer to another via a computer network, providing location transparency through remote procedure calls. ORBs promote interoperability of distributed object systems, enabling such systems to be built by piecing together objects from different vendors, while different parts communicate with each other via the ORB. Common Object Request Broker Architecture) standardizes the way ORB may be implemented.

In software engineering, service-oriented architecture (SOA) is an architectural style that focuses on discrete services instead of a monolithic design. SOA is a good choice for system integration. By consequence, it is also applied in the field of software design where services are provided to the other components by application components, through a communication protocol over a network. A service is a discrete unit of functionality that can be accessed remotely and acted upon and updated independently, such as retrieving a credit card statement online. SOA is also intended to be independent of vendors, products and technologies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Enterprise service bus</span> Communication system in a service-oriented architecture

An enterprise service bus (ESB) implements a communication system between mutually interacting software applications in a service-oriented architecture (SOA). It represents a software architecture for distributed computing, and is a special variant of the more general client-server model, wherein any application may behave as server or client. ESB promotes agility and flexibility with regard to high-level protocol communication between applications. Its primary use is in enterprise application integration (EAI) of heterogeneous and complex service landscapes.

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Red Hat Fuse is an open source integration platform based on Apache Camel. It is a distributed integration platform that provides a standardized methodology, infrastructure, and tools to integrate services, microservices, and application components.

Fuse Services Framework is an open source SOAP and REST web services platform based on Apache CXF for use in enterprise IT organizations. It is productized and supported by the Fuse group at FuseSource Corp. Fuse Services Framework service-enables new and existing systems for use in enterprise SOA infrastructure.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apache ActiveMQ</span> Software message broker

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Christopher J. Horn is an Irish academic and businessperson, co-founder and CEO of Ireland's first NASDAQ-listed company, IONA Technologies, once one of the world's top ten software-only companies by revenue. He also led fundraising for, and became founding chairperson of, Dublin's Science Gallery, and later its international spinoff projects. Horn, an electronics engineer and holder of a PhD in computer science, has also written extensively on technology and business innovation, and on privacy, including for The Irish Times. A former president of Engineers Ireland, and later made a Fellow of that body, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Trinity College Dublin, and a Gold Medal of the Royal Dublin Society. He has been chairperson or member of multiple commercial and voluntary boards, including those of Trinity College Dublin and Science Foundation Ireland.

References

  1. ↑ Irish Independent Archived 27 April 2016 at the Wayback Machine Thu, 24 January 2002
  2. 1 2 "Case study – Dr Chris Horn on Engineering Innovation, the case of Iona". Management Information Systems, UCD. University College Dublin. Archived from the original on 14 April 2021. Retrieved 6 April 2021.
  3. 1 2 3 Daly, Linda (3 February 2013). "Fame & Fortune: Chris Horn". The Sunday Times. London, UK. Retrieved 13 April 2021.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Breslin, John (20 May 2015). "Chris Horn Talks About Innovation And Ireland: "How Can We Create A Desirable Environment For Entrepreneurs?"". Technology Voice. Archived from the original on 18 April 2021. Retrieved 18 April 2021.
  5. ↑ Phelan, Andrew (26 June 2008). "Trinity boys sell college firm for $162m". Irish Independent. Retrieved 13 April 2021.
  6. ↑ eWeek Wed, 25 June 2008
  7. ↑ Micro Focus International plc Archived 4 November 2013 at the Wayback Machine 2012-12-24
  8. ↑ Darryl K. Taft (10 April 2007). "Iona Acquires LogicBlaze for Open-Source SOA". eWeek . Retrieved 15 January 2022.
  9. ↑ ebizQ 9 July 2007
  10. ↑ Archived 15 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine "C24 Integration Objects" [C24iO], 6 April 2011
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