Helped by financing and counseled by Werner Frank, one of Informatics' founders who had left this company a year before, Sterling Software started the hostile takeover by offering to shareholders an interesting price per share and increasing it slowly until the Informatics board was no longer able to reject it.

[6] Acquired Systems Center, Inc. of Reston, Virginia, in 1993 in a stock-for stock transaction worth $185 million, Sterling Software's 20th acquisition.

[7] In the process of this acquisition, Sterling Software was completely restructured along lines of business, as opposed to the previous practice of absorbing acquired companies as essentially equivalent divisions.

[citation needed] Acquired Atlanta-based KnowledgeWare in a stock-for-stock transaction worth $74 million in 1994, in the process eliminating about 250 jobs in the combined companies.

[8] KnowledgeWare's founder Fran Tarkenton joined the Sterling Software board of directors as part of the deal.