We hope M21 heralds a new era for M.

The M legacy is known to those who have dealt with it over the last four decades. A great tool for delivering quality systems, resilient and capable of handling enormous users and transactions.

M was probably the most understated product to have such a long life in computing. Coming from a caring, sharing community it lacked one necessary ingredient for success - a marketing department.

Intersystems provided that and did a great job to repackage M and apply professional marketing to what was becoming an anorak product.

Their drive to incorporate all M implementors under their one umbrella showed a business acumen new to the M world.

Ironically the final take-over of Micronetics may have turned the tide against M. Many users felt that a monopoly situation from a relatively minor player in the database market would be retrograde. Some users felt that they were being pushed into Caché through unjustified price rises and lack of support for the products they were comfortable with. Others felt that development of M as a product and the structure of the M community was now governed by one commercial organisation.

In short the previous M situation was reversed and it would be interesting to know whether M has declined in real terms over the last few years.

Recognising this situation and the opportunities for a commercially oriented organisation with a legacy in, and love of, M we have launched a new implementation of M.

We would not feel insulted if it were seen as a middle-road between Caché and open source M. We recognise that there are many who would like the bells and whistles of Caché and are happy to pay for them. We also recognise that open-source M has a role to play in continuining the M tradition and also providing a real source of M for those willing to invest the time and resource to it.

We would differentiate ourselves by offering a high quality implementation of M at a price that means we can maintain a support and administration structure for a world-wide distribution of M21.