Metier Management Systems, recently put up for sale by its parent company Lockheed Corp (CI No 1,150), has announced a joint marketing agreement with Symantec Corp, Cupertino, California. The deal centres around a new transparent link between Metier’s Time-Line project management package for personal computers and Symantec’s Artemis software, which is mostly sold on as part of a turnkey package using DEC VAXes, IBM mainframes, and Hewlett Packard HP1000 minicomputers. The link, called the Time-Line Artemis Exporter, allows project management data collected on personal computers or Apple Macintoshes running Time-Line to be consolidated into the larger scale Artemis project management system. According to Metier managing director Jeff Graham, a large number of Artemis customers also use the Time-Line system for PC work, and the deal is largely the result of customer demand: Lockheed Corp and the US National Aeronautics & Space Administration use both Symantec and Metier software, he said. Symantec claims to have cornered a 55% share of the PC-based project management market in the US, and Metier claims a leadership in larger systems, although it also offers the cut down Artemis 2000 system for MS-DOS. Available from both companies, the Exporter costs UKP175 for each copy of Time-Line that needs to be linked. Over 500 copies are out at customer sites following beta testing. Formed in 1976, Hayes, Middlesex based Metier was bought by Lockheed in 1985 for $100m (CI No 110), employs 600 people worldwide and remains profitable, but the aerospace and defence company now plans to concentrate on its core business, divesting itself of Metier along with the rest of its Information Systems Group, (which also includes Cadam Inc, Calcomp, and Dataplan). According to Graham, the ISG companies will be sold separately, not as a package. Little has been done so far aside from the appointing of a merchant bank, said Graham, who expected that the company’s future was unlikely to be settled until towards the end of the year. But Lockheed, as a major client, will support whatever option is best for the company – either an employee buy-out or as a sale to a third party. In the meantime it’s business as usual.
