Perforce Explained

Perforce Software, Inc.
Type:Private
Foundation: in Alameda, California, U.S.
Founder:Christopher Seiwald
Location:Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.
Area Served:Worldwide
Industry:Version control software, application lifecycle management, Git repository management, developer collaboration tools, platform automation tools, and Agile planning software
Num Employees:1,200 (2022)[1]

Perforce Software, Inc. is an American developer of software used for developing and running applications, including version control software, web-based repository management, developer collaboration, application lifecycle management, web application servers, debugging tools, platform automation, and agile planning software.

The company is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and is equally owned by private equity firms Clearlake Capital and Francisco Partners.[2] [3]

History

Perforce Software was founded in 1995 in Alameda, California by Christopher Seiwald, a software developer and computer science graduate from UC Berkeley.[4] Its first product was also called Perforce, and was a version control system allowing companies to collaborate on large software projects by keeping track of changes to both the source code and binary files.[4] [5]

In June 2013, the company released Helix Swarm, a tool for developers working in different geographic areas to collaborate on code review.[6]

In June 2014, the company released a version of its Perforce versioning engine, then known as P4D, which supported concurrency.[7]

In March 2015, the company renamed its product to Perforce Helix, which now supported distributed development and included security features allowing suspicious usage tracking.[8] Helix's security capabilities included IP threat detection, co-developed with analytics vendor Interset.[9] In October, the company collaborated with GitLab to release GitSwarm, a software tool that combined git distributed workflow for developers with Perforce's single code repository.[10]

In February 2016, Seiwald sold the company to investment group Summit Partners, and Janet Dryer was named as new CEO.[11] The company headquarters was relocated to Minneapolis.[12] In November, Perforce announced the acquisition of Seapine Software, a provider of application lifecycle management (ALM) tools.[13] Seapine's TestTrack ALM software was rebranded as Helix ALM.[14]

In September 2017, the company acquired Uppsala, Sweden-based Hansoft, a developer of Agile planning software.[15] Also in September, Perforce announced it had acquired Finnish repository management services company Deveo.[16] Deveo's products were merged into Perforce's Helix TeamHub, its first solo venture for Git-based development teams.

In January 2018, Summit Partners sold Perforce to private equity firm Clearlake Capital.[2] In May, Perforce acquired UK-based Programming Research (PRQA), a static code analysis firm.[17] In June, the company announced that CEO Janet Dryer was moving to the role of Chair of the Board, and COO/CFO Mark Ties was taking the role of CEO.[18] In October, the company acquired mobile and web automation testing company Perfecto.[19]

In January 2019, Perforce announced the acquisition of Rogue Wave Software, a software company with a focus on development tools for high-performance computing.[20] In April, private equity firm Francisco Partners acquired 50% of Perforce, becoming an equal partner with Clearlake Capital.[3] In September, Perforce Software was awarded the 2019 Computer Entertainment Developers Conference (CEDEC) Award for Engineering for Helix Core.[21] [22]

In June 2020, Perforce acquired software developer TestCraft Technologies, a provider of automated Selenium-based web application testing.[23] In July, Perforce acquired software developer Methodics, a DevOps software provider of intellectual property life cycle management for semiconductor companies.[24]

In October 2021, Perforce agreed to buy BlazeMeter testing platform from Broadcom Inc for an undisclosed sum.[25]

In April 2022, Perforce acquired the Portland, Oregon-based infrastructure automation software platform, Puppet.[26]

In March 2024, Perforce acquired the Redwood City, California-based test data management software, Delphix.[27]

Products

Perforce develops software used by software developers to manage code during the development process. The product line includes the following:

Helix Core

Helix Core
Helix Core
Latest Release Version:2022.1/2305383[28]
Operating System:AIX, FreeBSD, HP-UX, Linux, macOS, NetBSD, Solaris, Windows
Genre:Revision control
License:Proprietary

Helix Core, formerly Perforce Helix, is the company's version control software for large scale development environments.[29] The Helix Version Control System manages a central database and a master repository of file versions.

Helix Core clients fall into roughly five categories: Git, command, GUI, web, and plugin. The Perforce system can make part or all of its content available as Git repositories. Users of Git and of other clients can work with the same file content and history. Git commits are visible to users of other clients as Perforce changelists, and vice versa. Users submit changed files together in changelists, which are applied as atomic commits.

The server and client software are released as pre-built executables for Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD, and other operating systems.

Helix ALM

See main article: Helix ALM.

Helix ALM
Helix ALM
Latest Release Version:2022.1.0
Operating System:Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac OS X
Genre:Bug tracking system, project management software
License:Proprietary

Helix ALM, formerly TestTrack, is a suite of tools used for application lifecycle management (ALM), allowing developers to manage all their product and system development phases with one product.[13] [14] The software was originally developed by Seapine Software, which was acquired by Perforce and rebranded.[30] Helix ALM provides a centralized suite of capabilities for managing requirements, defects, issues and testing throughout the software development cycle.[31]

There are three components of the suite:[32]

Helix QAC

See main article: Helix QAC. The company develops the Helix QAC static code analysis software tool for the C and C++ programming languages.[33]

Other products and services

With the January 2019 Rogue Wave acquisition, Perforce acquired the following products:

In addition, Perforce also acquired OpenLogic, a consulting organization with expertise in open source software from Rogue Wave.[42]

Customers

Perforce's customers are software developers at a wide variety of companies, including Salesforce, Netflix, SAP, Disney, Intuit and the NYSE.[43] The company is considered a leader in the gaming space, with 18 of the top 20 games developers including Ubisoft and Electronic Arts using Perforce version control.[44]

Offices

The company is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with additional offices worldwide.[45]

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Perforce Software buys pioneering Portland software maker Puppet . 2022-04-11 . Spencer . Malia . Jones . Carter . . https://archive.today/20221106070026/https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/news/2022/04/11/puppet-sold-to-minnesota-software-company.html . 2022-11-06 . live.
  2. Web site: Clearlake Capital Buys Perforce Software . socaltech.com. 2018-01-10 . 2018-01-11.
  3. Web site: Francisco Partners, Clearlake link on Perforce deal . pitchbook.com. 2019-05-01 . 2019-05-15.
  4. Web site: The Light Touch - How a Hands-off CEO Marshals the Forces and Customers . alamedamagazine.com . 2008-04-11 . 2017-11-21 . 2017-12-07 . https://web.archive.org/web/20171207050120/http://www.alamedamagazine.com/Alameda-Magazine/May-June-2008/Business/ . dead .
  5. Web site: Perforce updates cross-platform interface for software versioning tool . macworld.com . 2008-03-10 . 2017-11-21.
  6. Web site: Perforce Swarm, A Developer Platform To Compete With The Likes Of GitHub and Atlassian . techcrunch.com . 2013-06-12 . 2017-11-21.
  7. Web site: Perforce introduces concurrency technology into versioning platform. sdtimes.com . 2014-06-11 . 2017-11-21.
  8. Web site: Perforce goes fully distributed in source-code management . sdtimes.com . 2015-03-04 . 2017-11-21.
  9. Web site: Using Log Data And Machine Learning To Weed Out The Bad Guys . forbes.com . 2015-03-27 . 2017-11-21.
  10. Web site: New Perforce Tool Gives Developers What They Love And IT What It Needs . techcrunch.com . 2010-10-06 . 2017-11-21.
  11. Web site: Summit Partners acquires Alameda's Perforce Software . mercurynews.com. 2016-02-03 . 2017-11-21.
  12. Web site: Face Time: Perforce Software CEO Janet Dryer. bizjournals.com . 2017-01-10 . 2017-11-21.
  13. Web site: Perforce acquires ALM provider Seapine Software. sdtimes.com. 2016-11-17 . 2017-11-21.
  14. Web site: Perforce puts Seapine Software acquisition to use with rebranded TestTrack ALM. pocketgamer.biz . 2017-05-30 . 2017-11-21.
  15. Web site: Perforce acquires Agile planning tool provider Hansoft . sdtimes.com . 2017-09-26 . 2017-11-21.
  16. Web site: Finnish Deveo snapped up by US company Perforce . goodnewsfinland.com . 2017-09-15 . 2017-11-21 . 2017-11-22 . https://web.archive.org/web/20171122011414/http://www.goodnewsfinland.com/finnish-deveo-sold-us-company-perforce/ . dead .
  17. Web site: Clearlake-backed Perforce Software acquires Programming Research . pehub.com . 2018-05-02 . 2018-07-09.
  18. Web site: CEO Janet Dryer leads second company to Top Workplaces ranking. startribune.com . 2018-06-21 . 2018-07-11.
  19. Web site: Perforce to acquire mobile and web testing provider Perfecto . sdtimes.com . 2018-10-08 . 2018-12-21.
  20. Web site: Perforce expands DevOps portfolio with Rogue Wave acquisition. sdtimes.com . 2019-01-22 . 2019-01-23.
  21. Web site: CEDEC AWARDS 2019 . CGWorld . ja. 2019-09-09 . 2020-04-09.
  22. Book: Koc. Guler. Aydos. Murat. Tekerek. Mehmet. 2019 4th International Conference on Computer Science and Engineering (UBMK) . Evaluation of Trustworthy Scrum Employment for Agile Software Development based on the Views of Software Developers . September 2019. 63–67. IEEE. 10.1109/ubmk.2019.8907213. 978-1-7281-3964-7. 208208412.
  23. Web site: Perforce Acquires TestCraft . Devops Digest . 2020-06-18 . 2020-08-07.
  24. Web site: SD Times news digest: Perforce Software acquires Methodics, Android basics in Kotlin, and TileDB's round of funding . SD Times. 2020-07-20 . 2020-08-07.
  25. Web site: Perforce buys BlazeMeter testing platform from Broadcom . 2021-10-01 . Jones . Carter . . https://archive.today/20221106182359/https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/news/2021/10/01/perforce-acquires-blazemeter-testing-platform.html . 2022-11-06 . live.
  26. Web site: Perforce Software acquires Puppet . 2022-04-11 . TechCrunch . 11 April 2022 . en-US.
  27. Web site: Perforce Completes Acquisition of Delphix . 2024-03-25 . Perforce . 25 March 2024 . en-US.
  28. Web site: Software Release Index - Perforce. www.perforce.com.
  29. Web site: Massive Git: Perforce Helix4Git is Git at scale . techtarget.com . 2017-05-29 . 2017-11-21.
  30. Web site: Perforce puts Seapine Software acquisition to use with rebranded TestTrack ALM. 30 May 2017 . 2017-06-17.
  31. News: Editor's Pick: Product Development Management Suite Updated. Lockwood. Anthony. Desktop Engineering. 2014-03-19. 2018-01-17. https://web.archive.org/web/20160303230802/http://www.deskeng.com/articles/aabped.htm. 2016-03-03. dead.
  32. News: Seapine Puts the Pro in Productivity. SD Times. 2008-09-01. 2018-01-12. bot: unknown. https://archive.today/20131030095727/http://www.sdtimes.com/content/article.aspx?ArticleID=32779&page=1. 2013-10-30.
  33. Web site: Perforce Adds Slack Support to Helix ALM . itprotoday.com . 2018-10-27 . 2018-12-07.
  34. Web site: Perforce Launches Helix TeamHub . devopsdigest.com . 2017-09-12 . 2017-11-21.
  35. Web site: Software testing is all about automation. SD Times. 2016-02-29 . 2020-04-22.
  36. Web site: Rogue Wave eats Acumem. The Register. 2010-10-04 . 2020-04-22.
  37. Web site: Rogue Wave acquires ZeroTurnaround for its Java developer tools . SD Times. 2017-11-29 . 2020-04-22.
  38. Web site: Rogue Wave Unveils SourcePro Upgrade. ADT Mag. 2005-08-02 . 2020-04-23.
  39. Web site: Rogue Buys Stingray . Computerworld . 1998-01-26 . 2020-04-23.
  40. Web site: An Interface to Support the Identification of Dynamic MPI 2 Processes for Scalable Parallel Debugging. Research Gate. 2006-09-01 . 2020-04-23.
  41. Web site: Going Rogue (Wave) Over ILOG C++ . Dr. Dobbs . 2012-05-11 . 2020-04-23.
  42. Web site: Rogue Wave plans to use OpenLogic's portfolio to roll out solutions intended to help developers search and write better open source codes faster.. ZDNet. 2013-08-22. 2020-01-29.
  43. Web site: Perforce: The biggest little secret in DevOps . devops.com . 2014-03-18 . 2017-11-21.
  44. Web site: The software game – Perforce's new Helix Platform . computerweekly.com . 2015-03-06 . 2017-11-21.
  45. Web site: Contact us . perforce.com . 2020-10-19.

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