Panvalet was developed by Pansophic Systems in 1969 as a program to store and manage computer program source code on direct-access storage devices.[4] Before Panvalet code was saved as paper punch cards, typically with 500 to 3,000 cards per program, often 1,000,000 or more per data center.[4] Cards were bulky, difficult to store and transport, difficult and costly to back up, and prone to catastrophic errors since one misplaced card could prevent a program from running correctly.[4]
Pansophic began selling the program in 1970 at a price of $2,880 per copy. It was immediately successful.[4]
In 1978, it was reported that Panvalet, at the time a product of Pansophic Systems, Inc,[5] was in use at over 3,000 sites.[6]
Throughout much of its existence, the main competitor to Panvalet was The Librarian product from Applied Data Research.[7][6][8] It had roughly the same number of installations as Panvalet. As recollected by Piscopo, "Panvalet and Librarian basically divided the program library market between the two of them.... Virtually everyone ended up with one or the other of the products."[4]
Computer Associates acquired Panvalet in 1991 when it purchased Pansophic Systems for $390M.[9]Broadcom acquired Panvalet in 2018 when it purchased Computer Associates.[10]
^ abDon Leavitt (27 March 1978). "Software winners' ranks swelling". Computerworld. Vol. 12, no. 13. IDG Enterprise. p. 2. ISSN0010-4841. The Librarian from Applied Data Research, Inc, Panvalet from Pansophic Systems, Inc. and the Westinghouse Disk Utility from Westinghouse Electric Corp. continue to top the "systems" list with more than 3,000 sites to each of their credits.
Years, where available, indicate the date of first stable release. Systems with names in italics are no longer maintained or have planned end-of-life dates.
