What are the most important challenges ahead for the MultiValue sector?
Users of MultiValue technology are extremely loyal but to maintain and expand MultiValue's footprint in the overall IT sector, the technology must be interoperable with other enterprise information technologies and take advantage of the opportunities presented by XML, Web services and .NET. We recently asked key MultiValue vendors to share their perspectives on the hurdles and the opportunities they foresee and here is how they responded.
“MultiValue applications have proven their worth in many industry sectors. While the successful applications are unparalleled in their richness, today they face two major challenges. First, many of them are still struggling to develop rich Web-based user interfaces,” Robert Nagle, vice president of software development, InterSystems, told 5 Minute Briefing. To address this, he said, application developers need to embrace component-based, Web user interface development technologies. These provide the necessary user interface richness without the maintenance burden of thick clients, he noted.
The second and, in many ways, more pressing challenge is that enterprises want to harness these older applications within the context of enterprise wide processes, he added. “Two architectural solutions are available. The first is to expose key application behaviors as Web services,” he said. “A second architectural choice is to make the existing business logic the heart of new composite applications.”
It is clear that enterprises want to continue to harness the proven business logic preset in so many MultiValue applications, Nagle said. “The challenge faced by application developers is to keep that business logic relevant by embracing platforms that support the emerging architectural needs.”
Embracing new languages is a key requirement for MV developers, observed Mike Ruane, president and CEO, Revelation Software “With emerging technologies such as the Google suite of applications and mobile devices the size of a cell phone that have full QWERTY keyboards and Web browser capabilities, MV developers must be able to make their data and applications available and attractive on these new devices, while retaining control and ownership of their data.”
According to Ruane, “Just as we all learned to program in BASIC because it was better for application development than Assembly language was,” MV developers must also learn that languages such as XML and AJAX are better choices for creating new Web- and mobile device-based applications.
It is important for MV applications to communicate or interoperate with other applications both inside and outside of the enterprise, observed Susie Siegesmund, director, U2 Data Services, IBM Information Management. This requirement, she noted, is at the heart of IBM’s On Demand strategy. “IBM believes that the way to become an On Demand business is through the implementation of a services-oriented architecture (SOA).”
For expanded answers from Nagle, Ruane and Siegesmund, as well as additional insight from Entrinsik's Doug Leupen, Kore Technologies' Mark Dobransky, DesignBais International's David McLean, jBASE's Bob Markowitz, Sierra Bravo's Luke Bucklin and BlueFinity International's David Cooper, read the March edition of DBTA.
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Entrinsik Schedules New Webinar for April 29
Continuing its Webinar series featuring customer-driven product demonstrations of the Web-based reporting tool Informer, Entrinsik announced its next free Web event will take place on April 29 and will feature Kevin Houk, applications systems analyst, at Carson-Newman College.
Informer is a fully integrated platform for reporting, to easily and secure access data in real time directly from UniVerse and UniData databases. Houk will discuss how and why his organization chose Informer as their UniData reporting solution and will provide a demonstration of how they implemented Informer into their Datatel environment, including Web server specs, working with files, etc. To register, go here. For information on access to replays of previous Webinars, go here.
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wIntegrate 6.1 on the Horizon
IBM's U2 group
plans to release wIntegrate 6.1 on March 31. The release provides
enhanced recovery capabilities by allowing telnet sessions to reconnect;
increases performance and usability of the Java Thin Client; allows
message passing between the Java Thin Client and external applications;
and supports additional customization capabilities.
The U2 group will have a booth at the upcoming International Spectrum MultiValue Conference in Newport Beach, CA, and will be highlighting its new U2.NET and IBM.NET products as well as the new features in the data servers, Susie Siegesmund, director, U2 Data Servers & Tools, IBM Data Management, told 5 Minute Briefing. Upcoming releases include U2.NET on May 27, and SB/XA on June 30. For more information on U2 data servers and tools, go here.
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BlueFinity Announces Plans for mv.NET Version 4 and MultiValue Seminar on April 4
BlueFinity International, a member of the Mpower1 group of companies, and a provider of .NET connectivity tools for MultiValue developers, has unveiled plans for its next major release. The key direction for mv.NET Version 4 is the support of new Microsoft technologies.
According to BlueFinity, Microsoft has enhanced the range of features and scope for third-party integration within Visual Studio. mv.NET V4.0 will take advantage of these enhancements to provide even tighter MultiValue database integration and further functionality within Visual Studio.
mv.NET V4.0 will provide a version of the product targeted at Microsoft’s .NET Framework 3.5 release while also maintaining support for Framework 2.0. mv.NET V4.0 will introduce support for Windows 64-bit platforms in addition to the current 32-bit support. Visual Studio 2008 32-bit and 64-bit will be fully supported within mv.NET. Additionally, further enhancements will be made in mv.NET V4.0 to extend the current support for foreign character sets, and a new data connector will be released to provide SSIS integration, offering what the vendor describes as an easy-to-use and versatile capability to move MultiValue resident data bi-directionally to and from Microsoft SQL Server.
According to BlueFinity, in Version 4.1, Language-Integrated Query (LINQ) will be an integral part of the .NET Framework, and mv.NET V4.1 will supply a LINQ provider that leverages the unique abilities of the MultiValue database model. Additionally, though Microsoft is still in its early adopter phase for Silverlight, BlueFinity plans tht mv.NET V4.2 will offer the database connectivity that will be a key aspect in the creation of business-based Silverlight applications.
BlueFinity is accepting applications for the Version 4 early adopters program. Those interested in testing their applications against mv.NET V4 should email v4@bluefinity.com for details.
The latest information will be available at a series of BlueFinity seminars taking place in the U.S. and the U.K. in April. The U.S. show will take place on the last day (April 4)of the International Spectrum MultiValue Conference in Newport Beach, CA, followed by a London seminar in the U.K. on April 22.
mv.NET is available for D3, jBASE, mvBASE, Power95, QM, Reality, UniData, UniVerse, UniVision and others by request. Visit here for more information.
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New Version of Bravo Dashboard Available from Sierra Bravo
Sierra Bravo has released a new version of Bravo Dashboard, adding support for several new MultiValue environments. Sierra Bravo last year released the free software for users of D3 and UniVerse on Unix. The new release (1.0.2) adds support for users running D3, UniVerse or UniData on the Windows platform.
A Pick programmer “who knows how to write reports and get data out of the system in a Pick environment,” can use Bravo Dashboard to generate Web-based dashboard screens or present the information in a number of different formats without having to learn Web development or learn any new programming languages, Luke Bucklin, president, Sierra Bravo, told 5 Minute Briefing. Bucklin added the company expects to provide a jBASE version in the future as well.
Free software for the creation of desktop widgets, Bravo Dashboard enables Pick programmers to install a dashboard of widgets, dynamically creating an always-current picture of their most important business metrics. According to the vendor, while it takes a programmer with Pick experience to build widgets with Bravo Dashboard, the widgets are built using tools they already know how to use.
Coinciding with the release of 1.0.2, the company has also released a Print Queue Widget for D3 on Windows and on Unix, “which allows D3 users to view, download, spool and manipulate their print jobs,” said Bucklin. “And for users of UniVerse on Unix, the print queue widget can be used to view and download print jobs.”
Sierra Bravo also plans to add new features to MV Central, the home of Bravo Dashboard and its online D3 Reference, in the next month. Currently slated are video/screencast tutorials, a user-contributed (and rated) link directory, and more free code in its Code Library. The company also plans to offer additional free developer tools in the next quarter.
Bravo Dashboard and the associated Print Queue Widgets are available as free downloads from Sierra Bravo's MultiValue Central. Users must register for a free account to download the software and access other advanced features on the site.
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