Rational Software Corp is teaming up with its Unified Modeling Language partner ObjecTime Ltd in a strategic business and technology alliance focused on the real-time market. As part of the deal, Rational has agreed to take a $8.9m stake in Canadian object tools vendor ObjecTime, which is based in Kanata, Ontario, and has an option to buy the company. Both firms will jointly collaborate on development and marketing to the real-time and embedded systems market – specifically an implementation of the Unified Modeling Language for real-time applications, based on the standard mechanisms in the UML. The alliance also includes a technology sharing agreement that will result in model interchange between Rational’s Rational Rose tool and ObjecTime’s ObjecTime Developer. The two will jointly develop follow-on visual development languages and tools for distributed real-time systems. Rational president Mike Devlin said, there is much synergy between our companies already [with] complementary software development products and an overlapping customer base. ObjecTime’s C and C++ generating tools are already aimed at the real-time marketplace, and the company sells to customers in the telecommunications, defense and aerospace industries. It was founded by alumni of Northern Telecom Ltd’s Bell-Northern Research arm. Earlier this month, ObjecTime signed a joint development agreement with operating system house Chorus Systems SA and compiler developer Green Hills Software Inc to deliver a bundled set of end-to-end real time development system software.
