Working on the McDonald’s principle of economics, that what the US has today, the world will want tomorrow, Tivoli Systems Inc is cranking up its international operation, opening a European headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland and naming Pierre Schmit, former vice-president of international operations at Providence, Rhode Island-based Cadre Technology Inc, to head the operation. Tivoli says the growing client-server market in Europe and the attendant systems management needs has provoked this sudden spending. Frank Moss, Tivoli president and chief executive, wants 50% of business to come from Europe within the next few years. As part of the plan, Tivoli will establish a European Technical Centre in Brussels by mid-1995 linked to its headquarter support centre in Austin, Texas. Tivoli plans to continue its practice of serving its international customers through a network of distributors, value-added resellers and consultants. In the UK, the company has signed with Protek Ltd of Maidenhead, Berkshire and in Germany with Dr Materna GmbH in Dortmund, which will distribute Tivoli products in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. The company expects to cover most of Europe with similar deals.
On the spot advice
Tivoli also plans to create a base of local consultants, trained and certified by the company, to give on-the-spot advice. Tivoli hopes the mixture of local sales support and direct and indirect OEM customers will overcome problems of language and technical attitude. As yet, the operation in Geneva is small but the company expects it to grow as the technical centre in Brussels takes off. European local support is expected in the first quarter of 1995. Tivoli also intends to address the higher proliferation of Digital Equipment Corp, Siemens AG and ICL Plc systems which it will find in Europe with an announcement next year. Tivoli’s product, a distributed object management system, the Tivoli Management Environment 2.0, which Moss says cost $50m to develop, has been shipping in the US since September. It enables administrators to arrange and control users, applications, systems and data across heterogenous, distributed computing environments. It includes a framework, applications and toolkits. The replicated server functionality, which preserves data if the Management Environment falls over, is due to be added to the Tivoli Management Environment information database and says Tivoli, is still on track for the end of the year (CI No 2,401). Denying it is over-extending itself, Tivoli claims 25 system and software vendors now support its environment.
