SDTimes has a story on IBM's shift of VAST over to Instantiations:

Instantiations characterized the move as a partnership, but an IBM spokesman who asked not to be named said it did not meet IBM’s legal definitions of a partnership and that the agreement was a way to end the life of the product while still providing support for its current customers.

IBM retains ownership of the VisualAge intellectual property, according to Instantiations CEO Mike Taylor. “We’re not buying anything,” he said. “We’re licensing the technology and the right to redistribute it from them. IBM retains intellectual property rights.”

According to Taylor, Instantiations’ corporate history goes back to Smalltalk’s creation. “Our roots go back to the very beginning days of Smalltalk, to 1980 when it was part of Xerox PARC,” he said. The company’s co-founders developed the first commercial version of Smalltalk at Tektronix in 1984, he added.

Hmm - interesting how IBM went out of their way to state that this was a way to "end of life" the product - and if you read the story in SD Times, they emphasized the migration aspect with Synchrony (i.e., the "we send an army of consultants in and convert you into a WebSphere shop path") more than the Instantiations path. It's an interesting story, just looking at the emphasis.