Benzinga | Dec 15, 2021 07:50AM EST

Altair Acquires World Programming; Terms Not Disclosed

Altair(NASDAQ:ALTR), the global leader converging simulation, HPC, and AI, today acquiredWorld Programming, a UK-based technology company specializing in data analytics software used by many of the world's leading companies including financial services and insurance organizations. World Programming's platform supports development and execution of multi-language software solutions leveraging popular languages used in data science including Python, R, and the SAS language in a single program.

"We are excited to integrate World Programming's exceptional team and technology into Altair and see this acquisition as a significant opportunity to help companies transition to hybrid architectures using modern, open technologies and languages while preserving, protecting, and leveraging the best elements of existing technology such as the SAS language," said James R. Scapa, founder and chief executive officer of Altair. "We believe World Programming's solutions are highly advanced and proven to help customers compile and execute millions of models built using the SAS language while embracing modern languages and open-source technologies, allowing them to respond faster to market demands and gain new insights."

World Programming brings a customer base of approximately 500 enterprise customers worldwide. As organizations increasingly seek open-source solutions to accelerate their big data initiatives and embrace a more modern and flexible environment, the acquisition of World Programming willstrengthen Altair's foothold inseveralindustries including financial services, insurance, healthcare, manufacturing, asset management, telecommunications, retail, energy, and consumer products.

The acquisition includes World Programming's flagship product, WPS Analytics, which is backed by more than two decades of experience and developed to meet the increasing use of open-source languages. WPS Analytics is a powerful and versatile software platform for scalable data manipulation and analytics, with several notable features including:

Ability to run programs written in SAS language syntax without the need to install any third-party productsFully integrated SAS language supportSupport for SQL, Python, R, and Hadoop and for exchanging data, all inside a single programAdvanced math, statistics, and machine learning algorithmsAbility to access multiple data sources including big data, cloud, and mainframeAbility to use standalone or with enterprise management facilities including data access control and model deployment to on-demand APIsFlexible deployment to link on-premises, mainframe, and cloud environments"Customers want choice and integrating with Altair an organization with a trusted and reliable open-architecture philosophy will give users easy access to technologies in a flexible and intuitive environment," said Oliver Robinson, chief executive officer, World Programming. "Altair will help to accelerate access to our solutions as we convergethemodern world of best-in-class open-source technologies with the ability to support decades of investment in the SAS language."

World Programming's softwarewill be integrated into Altair's data analytics solutions suite and available via Altair Units, which gives customers easy access to Altair's entire portfolio of software solutions.