Platinum Technology

Platinum Technology, acquired by CA Technologies, develops and markets database software products. It was founded by Andrew Filipowski in 1987 to market and support deployment of database management software products and the applications enabled by database management technology and to render related services. The company was a member of the UML Partners consortium. In 1989, Platinum grossed $6 million in sales and employed about 40 people. Nine years later, the company's annual sales reached about $1 billion, and it employed 5,000 people around the country, including 1,500 in the Chicago area. In 1999, Platinum was purchased for $3.5 billion by Computer Associates, a larger competitor based in New York that assumed both its operations and its name. Filipowski soon used some of his proceeds to begin an Internet “incubator” company called Divine InterVentures Inc., which, after being billed as the harbinger of a burgeoning Internet industry in Chicago, quickly sank along with the rest of the high-tech industry of the early 2000s.

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