Versant and FGM create alliance

Versant Corp. of Fremont, Calif., and FGM Inc. of Dulles, Va., have formed a distribution partnership, the firms announced Jan. 27.

Under the agreement, FGM will be a master distributor of Versant products for the government sector, focusing on federal, defense and intelligence sectors.

FGM develops software and systems to share, track and control critical information. Versant develops enterprise-level systems for real-time and object data management.

The company's Object Database Management System is used for fraud detection, yield management, real-time data collection and analysis, operation support systems and other large-scale applications in the telecommunications, financial services, transportation and defense industries.

The partnership deal follows last year's deployment of FGM's Tracker, built on Versant technology, through the State Department. Tracker is an export control and communication system developed by FGM to support the State Department's effort to track the movement of strategic, dual-use and sensitive materials for countries around the world.

Tracker is now deployed in more than 60 foreign ministries worldwide. It allows tracking of materials that by themselves are relatively innocuous, but when combined with other materials can cause mass destruction.

"Tracker Software helps countries track and prevent the propagation of weapons of mass destruction. Its success has fostered new joint projects between FGM and Versant targeted at several U.S. intelligence agencies," said Michael Morehouse, FGM senior vice president. "By using Versant VDS object database, we are able to offer real-time analysis of an extremely complex and time-sensitive set of data relationships, solving today's tough intelligence and defense problems."