GemTalk Systems Acquires GemStone/S

Today GemTalk Systems announced the acquisition of the GemStone/S platform from VMware. Before anyone gets their knickers in a knot, this is a good thing:

GemTalk Systems plans to expand its 64-bit Smalltalk platform capability by designing and releasing new and innovative extensions to the core GemStone/S technology.

The entire Smalltalk team is moving intact from VMware to GemTalk Systems and I want to emphasize that both GemTalk Systems and VMware are being very generous and fair during the transition.

We are re-locating to another suite in the same office complex, up the stairs from our old location.

We are keeping all of the GemStone/S intellectual property including MagLev and all of the GemStone/S customers.

We are not keeping our old name (GemStone Systems) and we are not keeping the gemstone.com domain. I guess one can’t expect everything. I have also been assured that the URLs for GemSource and SS3 will continue to function for at least a year (if not longer).

From a technical perspective GemStone/S has thrived at VMware, the engineering team has been pretty much left alone and we were given all of the necessary resources to “get the job done”. From a technical and personal perspective, I have been very happy with my tenure at VMware.

On the business side, I would say that GemStone/S foundered a bit. The GemStone/S product never got fully integrated into the VMware universe (unlike GemFire), but then the GemStone/S product was not the  primary focus of the original VMware acquisition.

Now, with the GemFire team becoming part of Pivotal, you can imagine that the Smalltalk team is very happy to find a home with GemTalk Systems . 

GemTalk Systems is a privately held company led by Dan Ware.  Prior to the VMware acquisition in 2010, Dan had been an executive with GemStone Systems  for 17 years. For most of those years Dan was in charge of the Sales organization, so Dan knows the GemStone/S customer base, very well.

Dan and the investors love GemStone/S and want to see it continue to thrive.

This quote bears repeating:

GemTalk Systems plans to expand its 64-bit Smalltalk platform capability by designing and releasing new and innovative extensions to the core GemStone/S technology.

and from our transition FAQ:

Our core technology will be Smalltalk-based products, but they can provide infrastructure in other environments. We will continue to support GemBuilder for Java, and we will be revisiting MagLev for Ruby and GLASS for Seaside. New initiatives into other development areas are possible.

Frankly, I don’t think that I could have imagined a better home for GemStone/S.