User:Gcaussade/Sandbox

Summary
ClearAccess Corporation, first a consulting and migration company working with top software development firms, later became the first company to provide a universal query and reporting user interface for Macintosh and Microsoft Windows to access popular database systems such as Oracle, DB2, Informix, RDB, and Sybase. The application suite included: ClearAccess, ClearReports, ClearLinks, and ClearManager. It is one of several companies that pioneered the fast growing software “Business Intelligence” category. It was acquired in 1994 by Sterling Software. Its primary competitors were Brio Technology, Andyne GQL, Cognos Impromptu, and Business Objects. McDonalds, Arco, Hughes Aircraft, Liberty Mutual, and other major organizations had purchased site licenses and standardized on ClearAccess.

Custom software and migrations history
Founded in 1987 by Gerald Caussade, ClearAccess acquired Fairfield Software, Inc. June 1988. Fairfield Software was a custom software development company based out of Fairfield, IA, with a customer list including Fortune 500 and leading software companies. Fairfield Software was used by Symantec Corp, Lotus Development (now IBM), Apple Computer, Ashton-Tate, Sierra On-line, and other software companies to develop new software technology or port existing technology.
 * Well known applications ported by ClearAccess via its Fairfield Software division:
 * Sierra On-line series of popular games. Migration from PC to Macintosh. ClearAccess received a perpetual 10% royalty on all sales of the Macintosh games.
 * Symantec Corporation’s primary product called Q&A  - ported from DOS to GUI environment.  Gordon Eubanks, CEO of Symantec, called ClearAccess Corp. “their secret weapon in the Midwest” for development and visited Fairfield to help plan the migration.  This was a fixed $450K contract. (Note: Symantec is now known for its anti-virus and related security software, but that technology was acquired later via its Norton acquisition.) Later, Ted Shlein was in charge of Symantec’s relationship with ClearAccess.
 * Scott Foresman, the leading education software and book publisher– migrated 10+ educational titles from Apple II to PC- DOS OS with an updated UI. ClearAccess- Fairfield Software wrote an Apple II emulator running on a PC to be able to debug the original Apple II code in a PC environment and port to DOS.  This was a $1 million + fixed bid contract.  The resulting applications were used in schools nationwide.

Develops and publishes ClearAccess and ClearReports
In 1988, Ashton-Tate, the publisher of the popular DBASE III database met with Gerald Caussade, ClearAccess CEO, and Thom Krystofiak, ClearAccess VP of development, to plan a database access development. Ashton Tate had acquired Macintosh spreadsheet technology and had shipped it as “Full-Impact”. During that time, Microsoft Excel was the market leader, but Ashton-Tate’s Full-Impact, and Informix Corp’s WingZ spreadsheet had unique features, each hoping to gain market share and take the leadership position in the hotly contested spreadsheet market. Apple Computer had recently acquired a database access middleware technology called CL/1, developed by Network Innovations. (A company Ashton-Tate offered to acquire, but was outbid by Apple.) CL/1 enabled an application to use a standard software library and one SQL dialect to access many different popular SQL databases such as: Digital RDB, IBM DB2, Oracle, Informix, and Sybase. Ashton-Tate wanted to add CL/1 capability in Full-Impact, giving it a powerful corporate feature missing in Microsoft Excel for Macintosh. One of the lead programmers at Network Innovations, Hugh Njemanze later became CTO of Verity, and then founded ArcSight, which was acquired by HP in 2011. ClearAccess Corp. was contracted to program the CL/1 connectivity into Full-Impact in 1988. However, after a few months, a management shake-up at Ashton-Tate resulted in a cancelled contract because the functionality was considered too strategic to outsource. ClearAccess Corporation chose to take the knowledge it learned about CL/1 and create a “Universal Interface” for all applications to access corporate databases from any Macintosh application. ClearAccess shipped it’s namesake application called “ClearAccess” in January 1989. Ashton-Tate chose to offer the application at a discount with Full-Impact because Ashton-Tate’s development effort with CL1 failed. Later in 1989, ClearAccess released “ClearLinks”, which gave Microsoft Excel, WingZ, and Full Impact native CL/1 connectivity to corporate databases.
 * Ashton-Tate

MacWeek Magazine’s John Battelle gives the company a boost
Macweek Magazine followed ClearAccess developments closely, and John Battelle (later co-founded Wired Magazine) visited, Fairfield, IA, ClearAccess headquarters to write a background article about the company. Many outlets published ClearAccess-related news, but John Battelle was critical in the company’s early success because of the credibility and exposure provided by MacWeek.

Oracle’s Marc Benioff persuades ClearAccess to support Oracle's SQL*NET
Marc Benioff, later founder and CEO of Salesforce.com, contacted Gerald Caussade and after many months of development and coordination, resulted in ClearAccess not only supporting Apples CL/1 (renamed DAL), but directly supporting Oracle’s database access technology called SQL*Net. ClearAccess became a critical ISV for Oracle Corporation, and later supported SQL*Net with its ClearAccess Windows version as well. Marc Benioff was critical in the negotiations because ClearAccess, until it’s support for Oracle directly, was working closely with Apple and it’s marketing groups. http://books.google.com/books?id=nDAEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA37&lpg=PA37&dq=clearaccess+marc+benioff&source=bl&ots=sLBDH9HlmW&sig=_qoY_7bx2SR1WU0gLSBstsEZdy0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=psZxUJeDDpPzqwHo-YD4DA&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=clearaccess%20marc%20benioff&f=false

ClearAccess wins coveted MacUser award, 1990 - “Best Data Management Product”
At a ceremony in San Francisco mimicking the academy awards, Gerald Caussade, CEOm accepted the award, later stating he was stunned that he beat Apple Computer who was also nominated. http://tidbits.com/article/3683

MicroStrategy uses ClearAccess for its flagship product.
MicroStrategy founder and CEO, Michael Saylor, met with Gerald Caussade at MacWorld and decided to expand their application to handle many databases and include a powerful GUI SQL query interface. ClearAccess licensed its technology to be included in the MicroStrategy’s flagship product.

Apple Computer funds ClearAccess Cupertino Offices to help with System 7
Apple Computer chooses ClearAccess as one of four software companies to influence the development and design of Apple’s new System 7.0 software. Apple paid for ClearAccess’ new offices in Cupertino, CA, to work with Apple software engineers to insure Apple’s new System 7.0’s new “Data Access Manager” had the ability to properly access many databases. Apple Computer also contracted ClearAccess to provide the specification and licensed software technology so “Data Access Manager” would have some standard universal calls for database access.

ClearAccess ships ClearAccess and ClearReports for Windows 3.0
When ClearAccess shipped the Windows 3.0 version, it became the first company to provide the same graphical interface for Macintosh and Windows computers. This was a critical differentiation factor for companies such as McDonalds, Hughes, Arco, and many others that deployed both Macintosh and Windows computers with access to many databases. One universal tool to access many corporate databases available on Macintosh and Windows was the key to the company’s growth and success until it was sold to Sterling software in 1994.

Sale of ClearAccess to KnowledgeWare -Sterling Software
Gerald Caussade, founder and CEO of ClearAccess felt market pressure from two international and larger competitors – Cognos and Business Objects. KnowledgeWare, Sterling Software, and Erwin offered to acquire the company in early 1994. Mr. Caussade accepted the offer from KnowledgeWare to purchase the assets of the company for an undisclosed sum in June 1994, including a 15% royalty. KnowledgeWare was acquired by Sterling Software within a month of the acquisition, and Mr. Caussade did not agree with the new marketing approach, and the accounting irregularities at Knowledgeware resulted in a lawsuit that was settled for $3 million including cash and options. Sterling Software chose to transform ClearAccess Enterprise Reporting tool into a “shrink-wrap” product, no longer attended enterprise database conferences, and discovered too late that it’s new marketing approach was a mistake and ceded the market to smaller companies such as Brio, Andyne, Cognos, and Business Objects.