Cullinane Corporation

Year Founded:

1968

Founder(s):

John J. Cullinane

Location:

Boston, MA

Description:

Cullinane Corporation was founded with the intent to repackage and market software developed by users. It was unusual among software companies of the time in that John Cullinane raised $500,000 on Wall Street to fund the start-up operation rather than choosing the more common route of selling contract programming services to support the company during its early years. Repackaging software developed by users turned out to be impractical, so the management changed strategy and developed a report generator called Culprit which became Cullinane's first successful software product. In 1973, Cullinane acquired the rights to a database management system called IDMS which became its flagship product. Cullinane Corporation went public in 1978, the first software product company to do so. The name was changed to Cullinet Software in 1983 and the company was sold to Computer Associates in 1989 for $330,000,000.

Year of First Public Offering:

1978

Final Year in Business:

1989

Disposition:

Sold to Computer Associates

Price, if sold:

$330,000,000

Current contact information:

Not applicable

Sources for additional information:

?

Sources for information on this page:

Interview with John Cullinane by Luanne Johnson on 5/15/86; Computer Associates web site as of 6/6/01; personal correspondence from John Cullinane to Luanne Johnson (various dates).

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