Instantiations to Take Lead on Smalltalk

VisualAge Smalltalk technology base has transitioned to Instantiations under a new relationship with IBM. Instantiations will deliver the new VA Smalltalk 7.0 product in the third quarter of this year.

Portland, OR (PRWEB) April 29, 2005

Instantiations, Inc., a leading provider of advanced software development solutions, announced today that it has formed a new relationship with IBM under which Instantiations assumes responsibility for ongoing development of the VisualAge® Smalltalk technology base. Instantiations will develop, market and support a new VisualAge-compatible version of Smalltalk called VA Smalltalk™. Initially, Instantiations plans to enhance the VisualAge Smalltalk technology with many improvements including a modern user interface provided by its VA Assist product, new controls, and a preview of new "Migration Readiness" capabilities from Synchrony Systems' Software Modernization Technology - SMT. Longer-range technical plans are under development.

The new agreement is a part of the larger IBM Smalltalk Transition Strategy and Roadmap that ensures the business needs and requirements of existing VisualAge Smalltalk customers continue to be satisfied.

“IBM is pleased to provide VisualAge Smalltalk customers with an option to continue exploiting and receiving business value from their investments in Smalltalk technology,” said Yvonne M. Perkins, Vice President Enterprise Platform Software, IBM Software. “This is part of IBM's VisualAge Smalltalk Transition Strategy and Roadmap which enable customers to evolve their critical Smalltalk-based systems, in an incremental and staged fashion, towards standards-based, service-oriented architectures which characterize the successful, competitive On Demand enterprises of the new millennium.”

"We've used Instantiations Smalltalk products for years and are delighted that IBM has partnered with them to carry Smalltalk forward,” said Ronald D. Painter, chief scientist, CACI, Inc. “VA Smalltalk will allow our simulation developments including JWARS (Joint Warfare System) to continue without interruption.”

“We are honored that IBM has chosen Instantiations to take a leadership role in evolving Smalltalk,” said Instantiations’ Eric Clayberg, Sr. vice president and Smalltalk business unit general manager. “We recognize that there are many customers who require a modern development environment and long term support for their business critical Smalltalk based applications. Many of IBM’s existing Smalltalk customers are also Instantiations’ customers, so this new relationship should be a very smooth transition for them.”

Pricing and Availability

VA Smalltalk 7.0 will be available in the third quarter of this year. Customers who wish to move to VA Smalltalk more quickly may participate in Instantiations’ Early Availability Program. The price per developer for a new license of VA Smalltalk will be $6,995 and includes one year of support, maintenance, and new releases. IBM customers with current VisualAge Smalltalk support agreements can “upgrade” to Instantiations’ VA Smalltalk Version 7.0 for $1,495. Customers who own unsupported copies of any VisualAge Smalltalk product can upgrade to VA Smalltalk for $1,995. Upgrades from competitive Smalltalk products will also be available for $1,995. For additional information and pricing please contact our sales department at (800) 808-3737 or by email at vast@instantiations.com. More information can be found on the company’s web site at http://www.instantiations.com/vast.

About Instantiations

Instantiations, Inc. provides leading edge software products, services and technologies for Java and Smalltalk. Through our industry partnership with IBM, Instantiations offers professional development environments and software products that integrate seamlessly with the latest development platforms. Instantiations is a member of the Eclipse Foundation and offers a line of products for Eclipse, IBM Rational® and WebSphere® Studio. Based in Portland, Ore., Instantiations was founded in 1997 by a team of internationally recognized pioneers in the field of component software technology. Instantiations can be reached at (800) 808-3737. More information may be found at http://www.instantiations.com.

VA Smalltalk is a trademark of Instantiations, Inc. VisualAge, WebSphere and Rational are registered trademarks of IBM Corporation. SMT is a trademark of Synchrony Systems. Java is a trademark of Sun Microsystems. All other trademarks are the properties of their respective companies.

# # #