[Vancouver, BRITISH COLUMBIA] Discovery Software Ltd., which specializes in outsourced software
development projects, has just acquired Eclipse Software and Consulting in an attempt to conquer new
territory in the red hot British Columbia high-tech market. Eclipse’s Process Web, which enhances the
Web development process, will enable Discovery to compete with other outsourced software developers
in the Vancouver market.
Discovery develops software for a number of computing platforms, including Windows, Macintosh, Linux,
and the Internet. The company also specializes in back-end Web development (database and ASP),
Web-based enterprise management (WBEM), object-oriented analysis and design (OOA&D), Visual
C++, Visual Basic, Java, and SQL Databases such as Sybase and SQL Server, and was recently ranked
the 12th fastest growing company in British Columbia by Business in Vancouver magazine.
Eclipse Software is a mid-sized Microsoft Certified Solution Provider, located in Vancouver’s emerging
Victory Square neighbourhood. The company specializes in Web-based enterprise management
(WBEM), object-oriented analysis and design (OOA&D), Visual C++, Visual Basic, Java, ASP, and
SQL Databases such as Sybase and SQL Server.
The acquisition is reflective of the intense competitive activity in the Vancouver technology market in the
B.C. capital. The influx of Asian investment funds into the province fueled the area’s real estate boom in
the 1980s and 1990s. Now American greenbacks are heading north of the border in an attempt by
acquisitive U.S. corporations to capitalize on the region’s booming high-tech sector, particularly in the
Internet, software, entertainment and biotech industries.
Recent power plays in the area include California high-tech company Broadcom Corp.’s purchase of
HotHaus Technologies Inc., a small Vancouver software company, for about CDN $414-million,
Redback Networks Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif., merger with the 40-employee Vancouver software
development office of Mountain View, Calif.-based Siara Systems for
US $4.3-billion. Paul Allen,
co-founder of Microsoft Corporation, was part of a consortium of investors who pumped US $33.2 million into Lions Gate Entertainment Corp last year.
