Progress Software Corporation (Progress) is an American public company that produces
software for creating and deploying business applications. Founded in
Burlington, Massachusetts with offices in 16 countries, the company posted revenues of $531.3 million (USD) in 2021 and employs approximately 2100 people.[3]
History
Progress Software was co-founded by several
MIT graduates, including Joseph W. Alsop, Clyde Kessel, and Chip Ziering in 1981.[4] Originally called Data Language Corporation (DLC), the company changed its name to Progress Software in 1987, the same name of its main product, Progress. In May 2016, Progress Software re-branded as "Progress" in an effort to "shed any doubts it was not living up to its name".[5]
In October 2002, Progress Software acquired
Stylus Studio developer
eXcelon Corporation for approximately $24 million.[6] n December 2003, Progress Software acquired DataDirect Technologies for $88 million.[7] In 2004, Progress Software acquired Persistence Software for $16 million.[8] In 2005, Progress acquired
complex event processing company Apama.[9] In January 2006, Progress Software acquired Actional Corporation.[10] In March 2006, Progress Software acquired Neon Systems, a company specializing in modernizing
3270 applications.[11][12]
In June 2008, Progress Software acquired Xcalia, a data integration company, and Mindreef, which developed SOAPscope products.In September 2008, Progress acquired
IONA Technologies, developer of
service-oriented architecture platforms
Artix and
Orbix, for $146 million.[13][14] In April 2011, Progress Software sold their
SWIFT integration product "ADS" (formally Iona's "Artix Data Services") to C24 Technologies Ltd. The product was re-branded to its former name "Integration Objects". In 2010, Progress Software acquired business process management vendor Savvion Inc.[15][16]
In 2012, Progress announced its shift to become a much more narrowly focused specialist vendor, looking to sell or decommission most of their existing products.[17][18] In June 2012, the company sold its open source division FuseSource, which was
spun out from the IONA business in October 2010, to
Red Hat.[19] In October 2012, Progress Software sold the brands Sonic, Savvion, Actional and DataXtend (DXSI) to
Trilogy which created the company Aurea Software.[20] In December 2012, the Orbix, Orbacus and Artix product lines were sold to
Micro Focus International for $15 million.[21]
In 2014, Progress acquired Cincinnati-based Modulus.[24] Also in 2014, Progress acquired
Telerik, a provider of application development tools.[25][26]
In 2019, Progress Software acquired
Ipswitch, Inc., an IT management vendor known for its
MOVEitmanaged file transfer platform.[27][28] On September 8, 2020, Progress Software announced the acquisition of
Chef Software Inc., the developers of the
Chef configuration management tool. The acquisition was completed by October 2020.[29][30][31] On September 23, 2021, Progress Software acquired
Kemp Technologies, who build load balancing products.[32] The acquisition was completed on November 1, 2021.[33] On January 3, 2023, Progress Software acquired database vendor
MarkLogic Corporation.[34]
Products
The Progress portfolio includes solutions for enterprise integration,
data interoperability, and application development, including
Software as a Service (SaaS) enablement and delivery.
In 2023, a security vulnerability in Progress-owned file transfer software MOVEit was exploited in a
data breach affecting various companies and government organizations.[44] A running total maintained by cybersecurity company
Emsisoft showed that more than 2,500 organizations were known to have been impacted as of October 25, 2023 with more than 80 percent of those organizations being US-based.[45] The cybercriminal organization
Clop was alleged to have been partially responsible for the attacks,[46] and claimed responsibility for breaches of
1st Source, the
BBC,
British Airways, the
New York City Department of Education,[47]Putnam Investments, and
Shell among others.[48][49]