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CA spins off Ingres database arm
California private equity firm steps up

By Tony Hallett

Published: Monday 07 November 2005

Computer Associates is spinning off Ingres, its database business, to Silicon Valley private equity firm Garnett & Helfrich Capital.

In a statement CA said the deal - for which no value has been disclosed - will allow it to concentrate on its "core strategic markets, which include systems and security management for the enterprise".

The Ingres database was made open source by CA last year.

Terry Garnett of Garnett & Helfrich will become interim CEO and chairman. He once worked at database leader Oracle, reporting in to CEO Larry Ellison, and his past successes as an early stage investor include Check Point Software, CrossWorlds Software, Niku and Siebel.

He said in a statement: "Our goal is to become the leading business open source database supplier to the enterprise community."

While the enterprise database market is now dominated by IBM, Oracle and Microsoft - which launched its latest version of SQL Server today - open source alternatives, especially MySQL, have recently started to turn heads.

Analysts and the wider IT community have largely validated the open source model for software but Ingres will face a tough battle.

It is thought most current Ingres staffers will be transferred to the new entity and the management team will boast others with plenty of experience in databases. In addition to Garnett and his partner David Helfrich, former Oracle veteran Michael Rocha will sit on the board, as will Mark Barrenechea, who will remain as CA's VP of technology strategy and chief technology architect.

Ingres was bought by the acquisitive CA in 1994, as part of ASK Group, and its relational database management system dates back 30 years to the University of California at Berkeley.

Garnett & Helfrich was formed in 2004 and earlier this year acquired a controlling stake in Wyse Technology, its first transaction.