Ovid Technologies
Industry | bioinformatics |
---|---|
Founded | 1984 |
Founder | Mark Nelson |
Headquarters | New York City |
Ovid Technologies, Inc. (or just Ovid for short), part of the
History
Ovid was founded in 1984 by Mark Nelson, who had developed an interface to
Nelson had attempted, unsuccessfully, to obtain funding for the company. In order to fund operations, Nelson began building computers in his apartment, selling them along with the software.[2][3] When the first product was released in 1988, the company changed its name to CD Plus. The product quickly became successful, fueled by innovations in search engine technology. Most importantly, Nelson had devised algorithms that encapsulated much of the complexity of Medline's lexicon, enabling end-users to achieve a high level of search precision without the need to master Medline's intricate taxonomy.[4] The company's first Microsoft Windows interface to MEDLINE was named Ovid and released in 1992. Nelson, who had majored in English Literature and minored in classical languages, chose the name Ovid as a homage to the ancient Roman poet's most famous work, Metamorphoses. Several years later, Nelson started the Alpheios Project, non-profit software to facilitate the reading of ancient Greek and Latin.[3]
The company's primary competitor continued to be
In 1998, Nelson, who still retained the majority of Ovid shares, was wary of the market bubble that had been building for several years. He engaged Goldman Sachs to sell the company.[2] Wolters Kluwer acquired the company in October, 1998, for $24.59/share.
Ovid continued to make inroads against its competitors. In 2001, Wolters Kluwer purchased the rival SilverPlatter company and merged it into Ovid during 2001 and early 2002.[5]
Ovid introduced a new database search interface called OvidSP in 2007. This has replaced the Ovid Gateway interface, which was retired in February 2008, and the SilverPlatter interface, which was retired in January 2009.
References
- ^ "Office Locations", Ovid Technologies, Inc.
- ^ a b c d Quint, Barbara. "Ovid Technologies bought by Wolters Kluwer for $200 million". Information Today October 5, 1998
- ^ a b c d "Ovid: A narrative chronology", NIC Corporation
- ^ "Ovid Technologies, Inc." BusinessWeek
- ^ "Company history Archived 2007-10-23 at the Wayback Machine", Ovid Technologies, Inc.
External links
- Ovid website
- OvidSP page at Ovid website
- Wolters Kluwer Health - OvidSP — a review of OvidSP by Davey Winder in Information World Review