he saw the company he founded in 1981 as a small computer software startup mushroom into a $1 billion company.

Hyperion Software Corp., the descendant of the company he founded in 1981 as IMRS, yesterday announced a buyout of Arbor Software Corp. for about $412 million.

The purchase will create one of the largest US makers of computer software used to improve the efficiency of businesses. The new company, to be called Hyperion Solutions Corp., will have a market capitalisation of $1.3 billion.

"It's nice to see the company take the next step,'' Scottish-born Mr. Thomson told The Royal Gazette yesterday. "When I started it in 1981 I didn't expect it to be a billion-dollar company traded on the Nasdaq.'' Mr. Thomson, an electronic engineer retired to Bermuda 10 years ago after he cashed in on his ownership of IMRS. He founded the company by developing Microcontrol, one of the first software business applications on the market.

He remains a director of the company and is still actively involved in product development. He will open an office for Hyperion at 133 Front Street on next month from where he will be helping develop the company's software.

Arbor is based in Sunnyvale California. The merged company will be operating from Sunnyvale as Hyperion Solutions Corp. and have a combined revenue of $350 million and 1,800 employees in 26 countries.

The companies are in the business of producing analytic applications. These applications provide businesses with information such as profitability analysis, budgeting and planning, performance measurement and financial reporting and consolidation. Together the companies are predicting they can take a bigger share of a market expected to triple to $2.6 billion in sales by 2001.

"Emerging market opportunities for analytic applications exist across a broad array of business functions including sales, marketing, manufacturing, risk management and human resources,'' a press release on the merger stated.