Synon - Chronology

Chronology

Synon Ltd was founded in London in 1984 by Simon Williams (CEO), Melinda Horton (COO) and Nick Knowles (CTO) with the objective of developing an application generator for the IBM System/38 platform. They were soon joined by Simon Haigh (VP Sales). Seed funding was provided by French Connection, a UK fashion house which later achieved notoriety for its FCUK advertising slogan.

Synon's first product was Synon/1, a programming productivity toolkit for the System/38, launched in 1985. In the same year the company appointed its first overseas distributors, in Australia and Norway.

Synon's flagship product, Synon/2 was launched in 1986 and became an immediate success with System/38 users. The same year, Chris Herron, formerly CEO of Fusion, along with Patrick Batty of Toronto, and Gerard Wolf of Chicago, set up Synon Inc, Synon's US sales and marketing subsidiary, in Larkspur, California. Synon also established a worldwide distribution channel with subsidiaries in France, Germany, Australia, Hong Kong and Japan.

In 1987, Synon played a key role alongside IBM at the UK launch of its AS/400 platform. The AS/400 version of Synon/2 was named Synon/2E.

In 1989, Synon, along with Bachman, Intersolv, KnowledgeWare and Systematica, was chosen by IBM to be at the heart of AD/Cycle, its framework for application development and CASE. IBM later acquired an equity stake in Synon.

In 1990, French Connection sold its equity stake to General Atlantic Partners and TA Associates, two US VCs. As a condition of the transaction, Synon moved its HQ to Larkspur and became a Delaware corporation, changing its name to Synon Corporation. Shortly afterwards, Chris Herron became CEO. Simon Williams, who remained based in the UK, continued as Chairman and CTO.

In 1991, Synon launched Synon Model Applications, an accounting package developed using Synon/2E. In the same year, the company won the Queen's Awards for Technology and for Export, becoming one of only a handful of companies ever to win both awards in the same year.

In 1992, Simon Williams, believing that the company was in danger of missing the client/server technology wave, left Synon together with Melinda Horton to establish Dysys, a self-funded UK start-up whose object was to develop a client/server, cross-platform successor to Synon/2E. In 1993 Williams and Horton sold Dysys to Synon, and returned to the fold. Their new product, Obsydian, was launched by Synon in 1994.

By 1997, Synon's revenue was $80 million, with around 6,000 customers worldwide.

In 1998, Synon was acquired by Sterling Software of Plano, Texas. Sterling continued to distribute and support Synon/2E and Obsydian as COOL:2E and COOL:Plex. La Crosse Management Systems of La Crosse, Wisconsin acquired Synon Model Applications from Sterling and continues to distribute it as La Crosse Financials.

In 2000, Sterling was acquired by Computer Associates (now CA), which continues to distribute and develop Synon/2E and Obsydian as CA 2E and CA Plex.

Simon Williams went on to develop the Associative Model of Data and to found Lazysoft.