Visible Systems Buys 3tSoftware, Giving Companies Automated End-To-End Application Development

Customers benefit by having an integrated product set for enterprise application analysis, design, modeling -- and now, coding -- for both Web and traditional applications.

Waltham, MA (January 9, 2001) - Visible Systems Corporation acquired the products and staff of 3tSoftware, Inc., enabling the company to provide one of the most well-rounded application development solutions in today's market. The combined product lines will give software developers a seamless way to build applications -- from creating the blueprint, or model, to generating production code. An integrated product line will help Visible compete more aggressively in the multi-billion dollar software application development tools market, which includes companies such as Rational and Embarcadero.

George Cagliuso, founder and president of Visible commented: "For over 10 years, Visible has given database and application developers affordable, model-based tools for building sound software efficiently. The acquisition of 3tSoftware and its VBMentor product fulfills our vision of automating the end of the build process – the coding that takes so much manpower and time. Visible can now provide a very competitive 'soup to nuts' development capability that's model-based and, therefore, technology-independent."

John Vosburgh, 3tSoftware founder and president, said: "3tSoftware's VBMentor product takes up where the Visible modeling tools leave off, generating business components from database schema and developer-added design information. Developers can take their design models and transform them into usable code for one-, two-, and three-tier applications. Automatic, model-based code generation saves companies tremendous time and money in manpower and error-correction and lets them focus on business rather than technical issues."

Visible is now selling the Visual Basic version of VBMentor, which has been available commercially for two years and is now being marketed under the name Visible Developer. VBMentor has proven its effectiveness in installations such as the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, Order Processing Technologies, and Tecolote Research, Inc.

Mr. Vosburgh added that the company plans a mid-2001 release of VBMentor versions that generate JAVA and C++ and provide additional support for Web and business-to-business applications.

3tSoftware

3tSoftware ( http://www.3tsoft.com ), based in Reston, VA, has been in the systems development business for seven years, specializing in the analysis, design, and development of enterprise-wide business applications. The company has developed techniques and tools for customers to build distributed business applications using Microsoft's ActiveX technology and Visual Basic. As a result, the company created VBMentor, a well-accepted Visual Basic add-in that generates code for complex, multi-tier applications.

Visible Systems Corporation

Visible ( http://www.visiblesystemscorp.com ), headquartered in Waltham, MA, is a leader in application development tools, training, and consulting. Visible has over 100,000 users of its products worldwide. The company's products include Visible Analyst, a powerful software analysis and design tool that supports UML, XML, round-trip, and structured software engineering in one integrated toolset; Visible Advantage, an architecture modeling and meta-data management tool for the planning and design of enterprise information portals; Visible Business Templates, which provides a fast-start approach to creating a quality data architecture for databases and data warehouses; and Razor, a full-featured configuration management system. The company also has an active consulting division that provides training and guidance on all aspects of implementing Enterprise Architectures and software projects.

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©2001 Visible Systems Corporation. All rights reserved. Visible, Visible Advantage and Visible Universal Model are trademarks of Visible Systems Corporation. Visible Analyst and Razor are registered trademarks of Visible Systems Corporation. VBMentor is a trademark of 3t Software. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.