Iona acquires software firm

IONA Technologies has acquired EJB Home Ltd, a privately-held UK Java software vendor, for an undisclosed sum.

IONA Technologies has acquired EJB Home Ltd, a privately-held UK Java software vendor, for an undisclosed sum.

At its IonaWorld '99 annual developers' conference in San Francisco yesterday, the company also announced its intention to licence Sun Microsystems Java technology.

Iona, now the world leader in object middleware technology, provides software that acts as a sort of traffic cop between different types of computer system.

EJB Home provides a software tool for building re-useable Enterprise Java components, or beans, that can, for instance, synchronise two types of banking systems to carry out tasks such as credit card verification.

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Iona has been actively seeking to acquire companies for the past 18 months, but did not until now find any suitable targets.

"One of the surefire ways to commit hara-kiri is to take over or merge with the wrong company," said Mr Annrai O'Toole, cofounder and chief technical officer of Iona. "We have looked at a lot of companies and have been very careful not to get involved with the wrong one."

EJB Home's software will enable Iona to provide a new easy-to-use generation of applications, something that is much needed if the company's rapid growth is to continue, according to analysts.

Meanwhile, Iona-92's licensing deal with Sun marks the company's renewed commitment to Java. The two companies were originally close partners, with Sun owning a 26 per cent stake in Iona until it floated on the Nasdaq index. During the past year, however, they had drifted apart after disagreeing over how certain Java standards should be implemented.