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Boole & Babbage Incorporated, founded as K & K Associates, was an American automation computer software company based in San Jose, California. It was the oldest systems management company in the world before being bought out in a stock swap by BMC Software in 1998.
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History
Boole & Babbage was founded in 1967 as K & K Associates by Ken Kolence and David Kaitch. The company changed its name to Boole & Babbage after an investment from Franklin Johnson, becoming the first software company in Silicon Valley to receive venture capital funding. Its main product was a computer mainframe monitoring package which was the first software that allowed the tracking of hours. The company had a million dollars in sales in its first year. However, the company's large expenses outstripped its profits. In 1972 Bruce Coleman was appointed as president to lower expenses, which was accomplished by 1978, after which he left the company. Boole & Babbage almost went bankrupt when their products became obsolete due to upgrades in IBM hardware. In the 1980s, Boole & Babbage developed new software and went public. In 1984 IBM changed its operating systems, rendering a number of Boole & Babbage's products obsolete. In response, Coleman returned as president. The company created COMMAND/Post for client/server systems in 1990, and it soon became their main product.
Advertising
In 1993, Boole & Babbage announced at the Computer Measurement Group annual conference that they had bought a two-year licence from Paramount Pictures to use Star Trek imagery in their advertising for COMMAND/Post and MainView for $75,000 a year. They used Commander William Riker (played by Jonathan Frakes) from Star Trek: The Next Generation in their first Star Trek advertisements. Frakes also starred in an advert for Boole & Babbage titled "The Vision" as Commander Riker and the USS Enterprise bridge set.
Decline and sale
In the late 1990s, the computer industry started to become dominated by larger companies and Boole & Babbage were having trouble competing. In 1998, as part of a series of takeovers, BMC Software bought Boole & Babbage in a stock swap.