Standardware

In 1981, as the technology world was on the cusp of the personal computer revolution, a company named Standardware was founded to solve problems in the world of big iron: the IBM mainframe. The company, led by founder Dave Evans, focused on a critical niche within this dominant enterprise ecosystem. They developed productivity software for the IBM Information Management System, or IMS, a hierarchical database and transaction management system that powered, and still powers, critical applications at the world's largest companies. Standardware's core business wasn't flashy, but it was essential. They built tools that made developers more efficient. Their key product line, COPE, addressed a major bottleneck in mainframe development: testing. Instead of companies having to create multiple, expensive, and complex instances of their IMS environments for development teams, COPE allowed them to create virtualized IMS environments. This meant teams could work in parallel without tripping over each other, dramatically speeding up development and testing cycles for mission-critical systems. For decades, Standardware operated as a private company, quietly providing essential technology to a specialized market. The significant event in its journey came on December 6, 2016. On this day, Compuware, a major player in the mainframe software space, announced it had acquired the assets of Standardware. The acquisition was driven by Compuware's strategy to enable Agile and DevOps practices on the mainframe, a platform not traditionally known for speed. By integrating COPE, Compuware could offer its customers a way to accelerate application delivery, bridging the gap between legacy systems and modern development demands.