Versant Academic Program

Many Universities are still only teaching their students how to use traditional relational database technology for modern software design. Whilst this technology will undoubtedly always have a place, today's new software projects are firmly based on the principles of object orientation.

As applications become more demanding, and object models become more complex, we are starting to see a dramatic shift in the way companies are handling their data management requirements. Complex object models are not easy to map into traditional relational databases, which often means slower performance and a compromise in design. A very obvious solution is to use an object database, as it's the natural choice for object-oriented design, and so much easier, faster and more cost-effective for building the next generation of high performance software applications. More and more companies are starting to recognise this fact and are looking at object database solutions to bridge the complexity gap. This is good news for us, but bad news for the students who leave University with little, or no knowledge and skills in this important area.

This is why Versant have introduced it's new Academic Program, which offers a special discounted rate for the use of Versant Object Database to all faculties who wish to use the software for non-commercial use, such as lectures, research and classroom teaching. The aim is to equip students with alternative database skills that are already in high demand in the market place, and which employers will come to expect in the future.

The Versant Academic Program costs just 1,000 Euros/US-Dollars to join (plus VAT). For this Versant provides an initial one-year floating license key, which has no limit to the number of machines it can be installed on within the University. On the agreement renewal date, and for each subsequent year that the University wish to renew their membership, they will be invoiced a further 1,000 Euros/US Dollars (or the current prevailing rate, which will be advised beforehand in writing). Once payment for renewals has been received, new one-year floating license keys will be issued, along with the current latest software versions. Universities will also be given access to the Member Area of the Versant Developer Center website via a named University representative.