Multivalue Everywhere

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® Software Vendor SSpecpecThE Multivalue tettchnologyrr ummumagazine i Nov/Dec 2009 – Wrap-up

MultiValue Everywhere

Using PHP to Connect U2 to the Web

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MultiValue Industry "End of Year" Recap! EmbedCache28Spectrum:Layout 1 12/15/08 5:35 PM Page 1

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MultiValue Everywhere – 6 Using PHP to Connect U2 features I November/December 2009 to the Web Anything Everywhere! What does “Everywhere” mean? It can mean on desktops, on all servers in an End of Year Recap 2009 has been a challenging year with most companies and organizations striving to do more with less. Even given enterprise, or it can mean accessible 8 the difficult environment, many companies have been creating a from everwhere, like from the Web. number of successes. We asked some of our MultiValue partners to tell There are numerous ways to make us about them. MultiValue data accessible from the Web. This article explores one possibility. Business Tech: Becoming a Software Vendor — Part 6 Want to become a Software Vendor? Have the Killer App? Having By Kevin King 12 discussed packaging, presentation, support requirements, distribution channels, and the like, this final article brings it back to several of the key questions. It this right for you? Do you have what it takes to risk failure, and make it a success? By Charles Barouch

SMS : An Example of Push Technology E-mail, Twitter, RSS. 14 There are many ways to get the message to your customers and coworkers. One of the methods that will allow you reach over two billions users is to use SMS (Short Message Service) to send text Departments messages to mobile phones. By Bob Carten, Revelation Software

Report Mining Your user-base wants some information. You have From the Inside page 4 28 it available. After all, there are a couple of reports that produce that Newsmakers page 22 data. But no. They want it in a different format, or downloadable as a spreadsheet. So we re-write the Query report as a MultiValue Basic New Products page 24 export program, right? Not so fast! There may be other options. By Tech Tip page 32 Brian Leach

Clif Notes page 47 Purchase of IBM U2 by Rocket Software October 1st, Rocket 30 Software purchased the U2 assets (UniVerse and UniData) from IBM. We talked with the U2 team about the change, what it meant, and what

International Spectrum and MultiValue U2 customers could expect. The answers to those and other questions are registered trademarks of International are summarized in this FAQ. By Nathan Rector Spectrum, Inc. All other registered trademarks are the property of the respective trademark holders.

INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM November/December 2009 u 3

International From the Inside B y N a t h a n R e c t o r SpectNrovemumber/December 2009 http://blog.intl-spectrum.com Nathan Rector President

Happy holidays to all! MultiValue vendors, including seeing Clifton Oliver It’s the end of the year, time to relax new products that would benefit your Managing Editor company’s business systems. and enjoy family and gift giving, and Shannon Stoltz time to start planning for 2010. To find out more on the 2010 Confer- Content Editor ence go to the following URL: Now that 2010 is just around the Tracey Rector corner, it’s time for me to start talking www.intl-spectrum.com/conference/ Layout about what is coming up: Denver2010/ 1. The International Spectrum Con- Look for the Conference brochure ference and Exhibition 2010 is in that will be landing on your desks Denver on April 12 – 15. That is soon that will contain a lot of helpful Learn more about the MultiValue Symbol and see less than five months away. information as well. what MulitValue Technologies and MultiValue Communities exist to help you support and manage 2. Social Media enhancements using Social Media your business and systems. To find out more visit Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and Social media has become an accepted http://www.intl-spectrum.com LinkedIn. means of communicating resources 3. Desktop and home page widgets MISSION STATEMENT International Spectrum and other information. International magazine’s editorial mission is to be the premier independent to provide software and database Spectrum enhanced its services to source of useful information for users, developers, and resellers tips, resources, and news directly of MultiValue database management systems, open systems include social media outlets for news, business database solutions, and related hardware, software, to you. tech resources, and general informa- and peripherals. Published bimonthly, International Spectrum provides comprehensive coverage of the products, companies, 2010 International Spectrum tion. and trends that shape the MultiValue marketplace as well as the computer industry at large — helping its readers get the most Have you taken a look at the confer- By the beginning of the year, we will out of their business computer systems. ence details yet? If not, please do. increase our use of Twitter to include You’ll find many informative sessions more information about the Multi- that you shouldn’t miss. You will also Value industry and to provide other find some documents and materials resources (both tech and IT). We will on the conference web site to help also have Facebook pages to help dis- m v .ENTERPRISE Mentor you justify your attendance at the tribute product specific information. Pro conference to management. We have been fairly active on Linke- MO/E Native PICK We all know how hard it is to explain dIn, and we will continue to use it to to management why it is important help with professional networking. p c Verse PICK OA to go to any conference. Look through Desktop/Home Page widgets tm Power the materials in the “Why Attend?” 95 More and more people are looking to section, see sample trip reports, the REALITY AP/PRO Letter to the Manager, and other create mashups using Yahoo, Google, R91 information to help out. and Windows Live to combine all m u l t i Verse their information into one place. With There is also a webinar on January the releases of the new desktop OSs, RPL 15, 2010 providing a preview of the desktop widgets are providing the m v •BASE conference and providing tools you same abilities. can use to produce an ROI for attend- International Spectrum is published six (6) times per year at International Spectrum has created the subscription price of $40.00 U.S. in the U.S.A.; $45.00 U.S. ing. Conference information will be in Canada and Mexico; $50.00 U.S. for other countries. Single provided through RSS feeds and Twit- widgets for Google and Yahoo for the copy rates are $7.00 U.S. in the U.S.A. and Canada, and $9.00 magazine and newsletter headlines. U.S. in all other countries. International Spectrum is published by ter. There is even a Facebook page International Specturm, Inc., 8956 Fox Drive #102, Thornton, CO We will continue to create widgets 80260; Tel: 720/259-1356; Fax: 603/250-0664 E-Mail: request@ dedicated to the Conference for those intl-spectrum.com. Copyright 2009 International Spectrum, Inc. interested. to provide information to specific All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part, without database and software needs. Keep a written permission, is prohibited. If you are having a hard time talk- watch for them. PRINTED IN USA ing management into paying for the NEWS RELEASES/UNSOLICITED ARTICLES attendance, don’t forget that the International Spectrum is eager to print your submissions of up-to- the-minute news and feature stories complementary to the exhibition floor is FREE to all attend- MultiValue marketplace. Black and white or color photographs ees and walk-ins. This gives you a and diagrams are welcome. Although there is no guarantee a -Nathan Rector submitted article will be published, every article will be con- chance to see all the tools, products, sidered. Please send your press releases, articles, and queries President, International Spectrum to: [email protected]. International Spectrum retains all and enhancement from your favorite reprint rights. [email protected] International Spectrum is a registered trademark and MultiValue is a trademark of International Spectrum, Inc. All other registered 4 u INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM November/December 2009 trademarks and trademarks are the property of the respective trademark holders.

MultiValue Everywhere Using PHP to Connect U2 to the Web

By Kevin King

t would appear that this little thing we call the Internet is probably going to be around for a while. IWouldn’t it be cool if we could leverage all that technology to give people all over the world access to our MultiValue information? Think about it — MultiValue everywhere! It makes me all warm and tingly

just thinking about it.

“But,” you say, “the Web is a new frontier and I don’t Be advised that during the installation you’ll be prompt- have time to learn a bunch of complex new stuff!” Be- ed for a network domain and server name; whatever lieve me, I hear you. However, using the UniObjects you enter here will need to be configured as a local host connector with UniData or UniVerse, plus a tiny bit in your Windows hosts file. For example, if you enter a of PHP, connecting your U2 application to the Web network domain of “myserver.com” and a server name doesn’t have to be complex or time consuming. of “www”, be sure to change your Windows host file to point www.myserver.com to 127.0.0.1. Other than this In the next few paragraphs we’ll take a step-by-step ap- detail, you can pretty much choose the default settings proach to help you with everything you need to get for everything else. started. Once these steps have been completed, you should have a working web server that can connect to Step 2: Get PHP your UniData or UniVerse database, and then you’ll be While the UniObjects connector that we’ll use to con- well on your way to mastering this new frontier. nect to U2 wasn’t specifically written for PHP, it’ll It’s important to note that these steps apply to instal- work, but only on Windows. If you use PHP on any- lation of a web server on a basic Windows PC, laptop, thing other than Windows, there are other options to or server. For training purposes the system doesn’t connect to U2 but none are as simple. have to be very powerful, but it is important that it is To obtain PHP, open a browser and head over to www. running Windows. I’ll explain more about why that’s php.net. Just like the Apache installer, the PHP installer important as we go along. We’re also going to assume is almost effortless. You’ll want to be sure to select the you already have a working UniData or UniVerse server right Apache version and configuration file during the somewhere on your side of the firewall. If not, take a install, but don’t worry too much about all of the other moment and install one of the personal editions; you’ll options. PHP comes with an extensive collection of op- be glad you did. tions that do some pretty remarkable things, but for our Step 1: Get a Web Server purposes we shouldn’t need any of these just yet. (They can be added later as needed.) Most organizations already have a web server, but to keep our valuable system administrators happy we’re Note: Another way to install Apache and PHP is using going to assume that server is hands-off for the mo- the XAMPP installer from the Apache Friends group ment. Instead, point a browser over to www.apache. (intl-spectrum.com/s1028). While it’s a great way to org and download and install the free Apache server. get Apache and PHP up and running fast, the XAMPP

Continues on page 26

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ENTK_Ad1009_F1.indd 1 10/6/09 1:53:28 PM MultiValue Industry’s “End of Year” Recap

he “End of Year” recap is a new special feature to International Spectrum magazine that we T plan to continue to do at the end of the every year. International Spectrum contacted all of its regular advertisers and conference sponsors and asked them to answer three questions: What new

features or services did you introduce in 2009; what was the greatest or most exciting thing that hap-

pened to your company or product in 2009; and what would you like Spectrum readers to watch for in

2010? Here are the responses we received:

AccuSoft Enterprises, Peter AdvancedWare, Paul Batten Schellenbach Q:What new features or services did you in- Q:What new features or services did you introduce in 2009? troduce in 2009? AdvancedWare expanded its .NET-based Storefront AccuSoft Enterprises showed a preview release of and Portal solutions that are real-time integrated AccuTerm 7 at the Spectrum show in Denver in with UniVerse/UniData. Along with a turnkey so- March. AccuTerm 7 has been extensively re-en- lution which includes the user interface pages, the gineered to take advantage of the new features in system also now comes with a complete set of web Windows 7. services for the various Storefront and Portal functions. This lets our customers completely manage AccuTerm 7 follows the visual theme of the version the web user interface in whatever way they want of Windows it is running under and blends harmoni- but still tie into the real-time web services which ously with modern Windows applications. handle the integration with UniVerse/UniData. For The visual themes are automatically applied to Ac- example, our customer might have a web site with cuTerm GUI applications. AccuTerm 7 is scheduled product display pages but they would like to use to ship before the end of 2009. web services to display product price and availability from their UniVerse or UniData system. Q:What was the greatest or most exciting Q:What was the greatest or most exciting thing that happened to your company or thing that happened to your company or product in 2009? product in 2009? Release of AccuTerm 7.

8 u INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM November/December 2009 Customer loyalty during the tough eco- Q:What was the greatest or most for the MultiValue database within that nomic times really helped Advanced- exciting thing that happened to community and we look forward to be- Ware stay successful. AdvancedWare your company or product in 2009? ing able to present the inherent benefits would like to express our sincere of the MultiValue model (which we all Without doubt it was the launch of thanks to all of our customers. know are there) to that development Solution Objects in September of this community in an industry standard and year. Solution Objects provides so Q:What would you like Spectrum easily consumed manner. readers to watch for in 2010? many benefits to the .NET developer needing to access a MultiValue data- Entrinsik, Sharon Shelton Providing solid real-time business bo- base. It exposes the MultiValue data as lutions for UniVerse and UniData that a standard strongly-typed Visual Studio Q:What new features or services work on any device such as the mobile datasource, which means that any tool did you introduce in 2009? phones (portals, business intelligence that understands how to use a Visual In June, we announced the general reporting for management, etc). 2010 Studio datasource (which in practice availability of Informer Web Report- is the year to use that cell phone to means just about every data related ing v4.0, providing organizations with help manage your business and not Visual Studio tool on the market) will unprecedented information access to just make phone calls (and listen to be able to access your MultiValue data. multiple databases. Informer now en- music). Solution Objects also allows the Mul- ables users to quickly connect multiple tiValue database knowledge within an sources of data to a single web report- BlueFinity International - a organization to be encapsulated with- member of the Mpower1 ing engine to easily navigate, assemble, Group of Companies, David in a formal object-based access layer, schedule, and deliver reports. Informer Cooper, Lead Developer which means that .NET developers pulls together data silos without rely- who know little or nothing about Mul- ing on a data warehouse or centralized Q:What new features or services tiValue databases can work with the did you introduce in 2009? data mart. And with Informer’s intel- database in a natural .NET way. ligent caching mechanism, users can 2009 saw two new major product re- The classes generated by Solution Ob- sort, filter, group, analyze, and chart leases from BlueFinity: our SSIS con- jects are packed full of functionality: results without bombarding the data- nector (mv.SSIS) and our business ob- lazy (delayed) data loading; optimistic base server with repetitive requests. jects access layer generator (Solution and/or pessimistic locking; stateful Intuitive ad-hoc report and customiza- Objects). and/or stateless connections; transaction capabilities mean end users can mv.SSIS is a datasource connector for tion boundaries, and lots, lots more! now query any data source, regardless use with Microsoft’s SSIS product and of where it is stored across relational allows SSIS to seamlessly connect into Q:What would you like Spectrum or MultiValue data, to build their own MultiValue databases to automate the readers to watch for in 2010? reports, and get fast answers to their own questions. process of moving MultiValue data The current release of Solution Objects into MS SQL. The unique aspect about is just the beginning for the product! Q:What was the greatest or most mv.SSIS is that everything is performed There is lots of additional functionality exciting thing that happened to within the native SSIS design and de- coming out next year, including sup- your company or product in 2009? bugging environment. Basically, if port for SQL and MultiValue database someone knows how to use SSIS, they access within the same single data ac- The recessionary environment has will automatically know how to use cess layer; automatic built-in LINQ sup- made it even more crucial for organiza- our mv.SSIS product. port within the generated classes; Sil- tions to find solutions that improve de- cision-making and provide bottom line Solution Objects is a significant new verlight integration; .NET data binding value quickly, and Informer v4.0 was functional addition to our flagship enhancements and a whole bunch of designed to deliver a rapid ROI. While product mv.NET. It allows developers exciting and innovative technologies many organizations did not initiate new to create powerful object-based access that will provide a level of .NET acces- ERP system purchases, many invested layers to their MultiValue database and sibility to the MultiValue data model in Informer to gain greater value from provides not only the design-time defi- that has never been seen before. their existing ERP databases. Our Part- nition tools but also the code genera- BlueFinity is absolutely committed to ners noticed the same phenomena as tor and runtime support assemblies to opening up the MultiValue database to well. This plus the powerful new fea- manifest these definitions in code. the whole .NET development commu- tures of our 4.0 release stimulated the nity in a way which is natural and effi- addition of several new Partners cov- cient for that group of developers. We Continues on page 10 in BlueFinity see a very bright future INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM November/December 2009 u 9 MultiValue Industry’s “End With the completion of Informer 4.0 tomer base in first quarter 2009. There of Year” Recap database extensions and minor feature is a growing demand for operational Continued from page 9 requests, we look forward to turning business intelligence that is available in our R&D department loose on all of the real time. DeepSee delivers embedded ering the manufacturing, distribution, new ideas that have been submitted real-time business intelligence which and construction industries. by our customers and our engineers. means that InterSystems’ application With the launch of Informer Web Re- Our existing customers have watched partners have the ability to provide porting v4.0, we’ve really set ourselves earlier versions of Informer expand in dashboards and key performance in- apart from other operational reporting functionality, applicability, and perfor- dicators in their MultiValue-based ap- and analysis solutions on the market. mance. And ongoing enhancements plication product lines. Consequently Unlike other BI solutions, Informer will provide even more extensive data their end-user customers have timely does not require organizations to set output and manipulation options. En- information to support optimal opera- up and maintain a separate data store trinsik’s Informer development staff tional decisions and increased opera- because it provides native database has earned a reputation for responsive tional efficiencies as well as to search connectivity to most industry-standard and creative product development and for new revenue opportunities. commercial databases —MultiValue or we are looking forward to continual In addition, InterSystems introduced SQL. No complex ETL processes, data product enhancement in 2010 and built-in reporting. The new Zen reports, warehousing, or data cubing. And to firmly establishing Informer as the lead- built into CACHÉ, eliminate reliance on maximize performance speed, Inform- ing self-service operational reporting expensive external reporting tools. De- er employs native query commands and analysis solution on the market. velopers have easy access to advanced and Web server caching to accelerate reporting capabilities and IT depart- data retrieval and deliver flexible, rapid InterSystems ments realize significant cost savings. data manipulation capabilities. Q:What new features or services For large enterprises, those savings can did you introduce in 2009? mount up to tens or even hundreds of Q:What would you like Spectrum thousands of dollars. Reports can be readers to watch for in 2010? InterSystems DeepSee became available to the CACHÉ MultiValue cus- generated in HTML, .PDF, and Post-

10 u INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM November/December 2009 Script formats and can be viewed in a should see more of the same from In- logic. Data can be stored in browser or printed in hardcopy form. terSystems: an external database such Changes can be developed easily and as Microsoft SQL Server, Or- yy More Innovation in our product rapidly to ensure fast response to user acle, or IBM’s DB2. The en- lines requests for new reports hancements radically improve the jQL yy Continued devotion to the princi- performance for the entire jEDI suite. Q:What was the greatest or most ples of long term partnerships Recent benchmark results demonstrat- exciting thing that happened to ed performance levels very close to — yy Attention and support for our part- your company or product in 2009? and in some cases surpassing — native ners In a difficult worldwide economic situ- jBASE files. ation, InterSystems has continued to in- jBASE International - a In terms of services, we offer a new vest and grow. By the end of 2009, we member of the Mpower1 migration package for users of other anticipate our total employment will Group of Companies, Pete Loveless, CEO MultiValue databases to move to jBASE have grown by over 20% during 2009 5. We’re offering significant discounts as we continue to increase our devel- Q:What new features or services on migrated licenses and big savings opment, delivery, and support staff. did you introduce in 2009? when it comes to support and services as well. At 17% of license list price per Q:What would you like Spectrum If the introduction of jBASE 5, the first year, fixed for two years, and payment readers to watch for in 2010? 64-bit MultiValue database, was not significant enough, we also recently not due until the system goes live, our This is a time of great uncertainty for introduced a major enhancement to migration support package it is ex- the world economy, for the IT industry our jEDI Development Kit. The jEDI tremely attractive. and for MultiValue community. Inter- (jBASE External Device Interface) en- Q:What was the greatest or most Systems has a consistent, long-term vi- ables applications to achieve seam- exciting thing that happened to sion to which the entire organization less integration with foreign databases your company or product in 2009? is committed on an ongoing basis. without any changes to the jBASE Mul- In 2010, the MultiValue community tiValue BASIC application code and Continues on page 18

INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM November/December 2009 u 11 By Charles Barouch

Business Tech: Becoming a Software Vendor Part 6

o far in this series, we’ve talked about customers, partners, investors, and employees. Now we S need to talk about you. Somehow, you’ve become interested in becoming an entrepreneur. Whether you leave that as a wistful thought, pursue it part-time, or drop everything and mortgage

the house for it, you think this might be your better life. We will talk about the upside of taking the

plunge, but first, here’s a last dose of pessimism before we get to the positives.

My Own Boss I Like Telling People What To Do Funny thing is, as a small business owner, I’m at If being in charge is your motivator, find another the beck and call of my customers. The bank has an motivator. The best people work best with a very opinion on how I do business, as does the govern- light hand on the wheel. You’ll want the best ment. More importantly, my family is affected by people for your business. If you really want to be my choices and that means that they have input as the order giver, look for a business or department well. So, while I am “the boss,” I am certainly not which hires unmotivated or untalented people. my own boss. As an executive at Salant, which was They need direction more than they need leader- a multi-national, half billion dollar company while ship. I was there, I often had more leeway than I do in my own business. I certainly had more access to Not All Gloom and Doom funding and staff. There are upsides to creating your own software company. The ability to create jobs and fill them The Money Just Keeps On Coming with gifted people is a huge perk. The ability to Ask anyone in the software business and they will reach out into the customer base and improve tell you that people complain about paying main- things is a good return on all of your effort. There’s tenance. At some level, they have to know that if a magic in putting this all together and pulling it all they don’t pay, the people they count on for sup- off. Assuming we want to be in business to make port and upgrades won’t be there when they need things better, we are in the right business. them. So, while many people believe that they can I like the feeling I get when I can come home at make a living on recurring revenue, it is becoming night and know that I’ve improved someone’s life a hard model to make work. The downturn in the by my actions. I like creating opportunities for economy isn’t helping any of us tell that story. good people to do better. There is a sense of personal empowerment that comes with ownership.

12 u INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM November/December 2009 Despite the ebb and flow of demands columns like this is doing what I love. around you — from employees, inves- Assuming we want to be If building your own business is what tors, and customers — there is a sense in business to make things you love, you need to pursue it even if of self that changes when you are the you fail the first time. boss. better, we are in the right The good news is that we all get more It may seem odd to some people, but business. than one chance at happiness. We all I’m hoping that most of you never step have room in our lives for more than into this world. Not because I wish you nancial needs, we continued with our one kind of happiness. After writing ill, or fear the competition, or any oth- lives. This does not have to be a plunge about this for a year, I am gearing up er negative reason. This life is not for if you don’t want it to be. to go back into the packaged software everyone. For those of you who belong business. It isn’t a fast ride, so you may Granted, we had no investors. Inves- in this particular category, please read get there first, but I am on the road tors tend to want to see you fully com- and proceed. Your contributions are again. IS mitted before they commit money. needed and your skin is thick enough Likewise, full-time employees often get for the abuse to come. It is a good thing CHARLES BAROUCH nervous if the boss is a part-timer who that not everyone fits this mold. At the is the CTO for Key Ally, could, in a financial sense, safely drop end of the day, someone has to grow the business tomorrow. So, you need Inc. He is current Presi- crops, someone has to build houses, to right-size your business to match the dent of the International and — oddly — no one has to build product and to match your risk factors. software. U2 Users Group, and a regular Spectrum Remember, your choices imply things What we do is a luxury. Businesses to others. Magazine contributor. have been businesses for a really long Contact Charles at [email protected], time before computerization. People What If I Fail? used to get through their day without Great people fail all the time. There or phone (718) 762-3884 ext 1. YouTube and the iPhone. Many still do. are endless quotes about failing; look As much as we love our industry, we them up. When I do anything, I allow ® have to honest about it. We provide for the possibility of failure. As I have SpoolerPlus an easier way. We add speed and ease, said previously, that limits my success Generic Pick® Spooler for but we are not the only way to a goal. because most truly successful people, Universe®, Unidata®, There is a difference between making just like most massively unsuccessful and QM life possible and making life better. You people, pick one goal and cling to it (includes Reality syntax) need to be happy with your choices if without a thought of a plan “B” any- � you are going to build the next great where in their worldview. There are Run generic Pick® software in a friendly Pick-flavor account thing. exceptions. Some people, like Edison, without modifying your print could come up with an idea, ride it to processes.

Taking the Plunge a logical conclusion, and the come up � Use STARTPTR, SP-ASSIGN, Many years ago, my wife and I inter- with the next idea. His resilience was SP-EDIT, LISTPTR, LISTPEQS, viewed a couple who wrote, drew, his real strength. :STARTSPOOLER, etc. as usual. and produced comics. So I asked them, � Personally, I’m really good at failing. Reassign printers to print queues, “What made you decide to take the I’ve certainly had enough experience. Plus reconfigure the printer for plunge, give it all up, and do this in- From that, I’ve learned how to plan the print queue automatically. stead?” better, how to execute better, and how � Avoid retraining personnel in new, Richard, the husband, looked at me as to allow myself to fail without falling less flexible print procedures. if I’d grown three heads. “We never apart. That’s all part of the tough skin Get all the facts before you buy. Contact: did,” he replied. “We did this on the you need for this sort of life. side until it was profitable. I didn’t quit Sysmark my job until this was a job.” Curtain Call Information Systems, Inc It is hard to believe, but I’ve been writ- When Bob Coltun and I started Mount Reseller Inquiries Invited ing this series on entrepreneurs for a Worldwide: UK: Olympus Systems (MOS), we both had year now. Next issue will belong to 800-SYSMARK Brian Leach Consulting Ltd other work. When MOS proved to be (800-797-6275) [email protected] a new year and a new topic. Writing [email protected] www.brianleach.co.uk too light a craft to carry all of our fi- www.sysmarkinfo.com

INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM November/December 2009 u 13 By Bob Carten, Revelation Software SMS : An Example of Push Technology

Overview recipient. Text messages are limited to 160 characters, Multiple articles in the Sept/Oct 2009 issue of Interna- but fit a network, a device, and a lifestyle that is within tional Spectrum discuss integrating with social media reach of most people in the world. If “reach” is the pri- such as Twitter and Facebook, including a nice example mary concern of your push technology, text messaging of using the Twitter API to send a message. The follow- may have a role. ing article continues that theme, from a slightly different viewpoint. E-mail to SMS You have technology options available for sending text The meat of this article is how to send and receive SMS messages. The simplest option is to send an e-mail to a messages using a GSM modem. The viewpoint is that mobile phone number. Most mobile operators have a sending text messages is just one of a family of techniques standard e-mail gateway. If you know the service provider known as push technologies implementing a communica- then you just append it to the phone number. The ben- tion known as “publish and subscribe”. E-mail, RSS, Twit- efits of this approach are its simplicity. The costs are that ter, and chat are other examples of push technology. the recipient cannot reply to you, and, with the advent In the “publish and subscribe” pattern, the publisher al- of number portability, there is not a reliable way to deter- lows one or more people to enroll to receive messages mine the service provider from a phone number. and the subscriber agrees to allow the publisher to send messages. The different technologies differ in the degree SMS Relay of coupling between publisher and subscriber(s), the You can subscribe to a relay service or SMS gateway that degree of latency between initiation and receipt, and, of will send your messages for you. Typically, you send a course, the transport technology. web request to their server, and they route the message to the correct provider. These services are geared toward E-mail and SMS have the loosest coupling. When you get publishers who send thousands of messages per month. an e-mail address you have to subscribe to every e-mail They offer one-way broadcasting or two-way messaging publisher on earth. RSS and Twitter subscriptions are with the ability to have your service hosted by one phone more tightly coupled; one or both parties deliberately cre- number or even a short-code. ate subscriptions. In most push technologies, the transport will incorporate a public network, either the Inter- If you want to vote for your favorite musician or ticket net or the mobile telephone infrastructure. giveaways, these services are for you. There is plenty of information on the web. See developershome.com/sms/ “Rich versus Reach” is another differentiator for these for an overview. Skype and Google also have SMS capa- publish and subscribe technologies. Rich refers to the bilities. You can use these services as gateways also. amount or complexity of the message. Reach refers to the number of people who have the ability to receive the SMS Modem message. A person who does not have a device and net- You can attach a cellular modem to a computer, install work to receive the message is out of reach. gateway software, and become your own SMS gateway. Push technology adds another factor to reach — timeli- For proof of concept, you can simply attach a GSM cell ness or velocity. If a message always arrives at a device phone with a USB cable. Industrial cellular modems have but arrives too late, that device is out of reach. E-mail evolved a lot of the last few years. Multi-Tech is one man- sends very rich messages but requires a certain amount of ufacturer of these modems. You can purchase a stand- infrastructure and a certain amount of attention from the alone modem to connect with a PC-based gateway, or Continues on page 16 14 u INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM November/December 2009 Special Offer!

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INTERNATIONALwww.intl-spectrum.com/conference SPECTRUM November/December 2009 u 15 SMS : An Example of Push cated the bin directory. Edit this file for Technology Rich refers to the amount your situation. For my Multi-Tech mo- Continued from page 14 or complexity of the dem on Vista I found that “connection =AT115200”, “port=com3:” are the you can purchase a turnkey system message. Reach refers to magic settings. For testing, I set debug- with its own web interface. One mo- mode=255 and added a log file (fig. 1 dem can handle about 30 messages per the number of people who and 2). minute. For more throughput, you can have the ability to receive add more modems. the message. Sending and receive The benefit of using your own modem messages is that you are independent of the In- With Gammu configured for files The documentation is not very clear, ternet or any third-party SMS gateway. mode, sending and receiving messages but the process is simple. The docu- This independent channel can be use- is trivial. You simply write or read a mentation discusses modifying the ful for mobile applications, or for out- text file whose name is formatted the “connection” setting for various phone of-band authentication, where your way Gammu expects. Figures 3 and types. I found that using the generic AT secure web-login requires a user to re- 4 show some sample code written in connection with the correct baud rate enter a code which you send to their OpenInsight Basic+. for my modem worked well. mobile. Conclusion Example Gammurc file Gateway Software SMS may have a role to play for you. Gammu settings are controlled by a Running your own SMS gateway will SMS is a push technology you can suc- configuration file named Gammurc lo- require software as well the modem ceed with today. SMS has the highest hardware. Various commercial packages exist — some associated with mobile vendors and some by independent parties. The commercial applications are likely to work well with whatever modem you use. There is an open source product named Gammu that works pretty well. Gammu runs on Linux or Windows and can run as a service (Gammu:SMSD). To interact with the service, you place outgoing messages in one table and read incoming from another. Gammu can use SQL tables or subdirectories with plain text files. The code example in this article use the file-based interface. Fig. 1 Gammu Settings How to Use Gammu You can find Gammu downloads and documentation at cihar.com/gammu/ The steps to use Gammu are: 1. Download the version for your platform, 2. Install, 3. Edit the config file as needed for your modem and subdirectories, and 4. Write a program to deposit messages into the outbox. Fig. 2 Gammu:SMSD settings 16 u INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM November/December 2009 reach factor in the rich versus reach you view SMS as starting point in your More Information balance of current push technologies. adoption of push technologies and iso- Overview: You can include a URL in your mes- late the push subroutines so that you www.developershome.com/sms/ sage and users with smart phones can can dynamically substitute increasing Example Bulk Gateway: open the link, making SMS a push gate- rich technologies as the customer base www.clickatell.com way to rich content. I recommend that evolves. Commercial Gateway: www.intellisoftware.co.uk Open Source: cihar.com/gammu IS

Robert Carten has over 30 years experience in the software world, with over 25 of those years using Revelation products. He has been teaching Revela- tion training courses since 1999. and has worked with many of the major Database products on Windows, Unix, IBM, and Li- nux platforms. Robert has pioneered enabling OpenInsight applications to integrate and distribute across platforms and technologies. Robert has a Bachelor of Arts in Physics from Grinnell College and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engi-

Fig. 3 Program to send a message neering from Columbia University.

Fig. 4 Program to receive a message INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM November/December 2009 u 17 MultiValue Industry’s “End you could say that in our ments. A key new feature was the abil- of Year” Recap market? ity to extract data from multiple files sharing the same data structure (e.g., Continued from page 11 With the long-term commitment from comma files or yearly transactional Without a doubt it was the launch of Mpower1 International to jBASE and to files) using just one export template jBASE Release 5. Now available in Beta, sister company, BlueFinity Internation- — accelerating implementation and re- jBASE 5 brings MultiValue users closer al, there has never been a better time ducing administration. to the mainstream than ever before. to be a MultiValue user. jBASE users are going to have a great 2010! Our KommerceServer eCommerce jBASE 5 is a true 64-bit MultiValue data- solutions saw many new features and base. Whereas other MultiValue data- Key Ally, Inc, Charles capabilities added for the consumer bases might have added 64-bit address- Barouch market. Most significant was a new ing to overcome 2GB file sizing, jBASE Q:What new features or services multi-store architecture that supports 5 is a complete 64-bit implementation did you introduce in 2009? multiple brands or product lines within of the database. There are therefore no a single online storefront. This makes it hidden 32-bit addressing limitations Web and GUI work is continuing to easier to promote cross-brand market- and complex and large applications increase. More and more, I have to be ing and sales while greatly streamlining can be handled with ease. able to put a modern front-end on even the online shopper’s experience. Also ‘quickie’ projects. jBASE 5 brings mainstream file and introduced was a new web develop- system resiliency to MultiValue appli- ment framework, which provides a Q:What was the greatest or most cations through the introduction of foundation that makes developing web exciting thing that happened to the Dataguard Suite. The file system applications easier while providing for your company or product in has resilient and automatic resizing jR improved end-user customization. 2009? files and, within Dataguard, we have Kore has been working to build a net- introduced file checkpointing, warm- The sale of U2 to Rocket — It changes work of partners who sell and support start recovery, and online backup and the landscape for the entire communi- Kore products in their vertical or area restore. These features allow jBASE to ty. The signs of re-invigoration at Tiger of expertise. The result is that we ex- operate non-stop as a technology plat- Logic and the new directions coming panded our partner and VAR network form. Many of these features are stan- from Northgate-IS are very encourag- domestically and internationally. This dard within DB2 and Oracle systems. ing. Watching OpenInsight roll out has allowed Kore to extend our reach They are now standard to jBASE. new web initiatives has got my interest and footprint into areas, applications, as well. Q:What would you like Spectrum and territories that are typically diffi- readers to watch for in 2010? Q:What would you like Spectrum cult to penetrate due to subject matter readers to watch for in 2010? expertise, etc. jBASE International is committed to helping our customers leverage the Increased visibility. And that isn’t just Q:What was the greatest or most latest technologies while still retain- the vendor’s job. We all need to get exciting thing that happened to ing the fundamental value in their our business hats firmly clamped onto your company or product in 2009? MultiValue investment. In addition to our technological heads so that we can With the tough economic conditions of the general release of jBASE 5, we will prove value. The successes are there, 2009, Kore has been fortunate to have focus on extending the existing func- we just need to get better at telling expanded operations during these chal- tionality within jBASE with the very those stories to the wider audience. lenging times. Our product and service latest Microsoft .NET and Java develop- diversification has been one of the pri- ment tools. With enterprise class Java Kore Technologies, Keith mary keys to our success. support delivered by a new JDBC and Lambert J2EE Connector Architecture (JCA) en- Q:What new features or services One of the most exciting develop- hancements to jBASE Basic together did you introduce in 2009? ments for Kore in 2009 was that we with new jRemote Java functionality, have been able to diversify our prod- Our best-in-class MultiValue integration and enterprise class Microsoft .NET uct and service offerings even further solutions — Kourier Integrator for U2 support provided by mv.NET with its via our partnership with Demand So- and SQL Accelerator — continued to new Solution Objects functionality and lutions — a market leader in Forecast improve with new product releases. jRCS, you get an exciting time to be Management, Requirements Planning, The primary focus was on providing a MultiValue developer. and Advanced Scheduling software. additional functionality, improved per- When was the last time This new partnership allows Kore to formance, and productivity enhance- leverage its extensive supply chain and

18 u INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM November/December 2009 integration expertise while enabling LadyBridge Systems, Martin to say much about this but us to sell, implement, and support ad- Phillips details will be announced ditional best-in-class, value-based solu- Q:What new features or services as soon as possible. As of tions to our clients. did you introduce in 2009? October 2009, the system is in beta testing with 500 users spread With this new partnership comes an The QM development strategy is one over five states of the USA. excellent opportunity for Kore to grow of continual enhancement to meet in many new areas and directions, customer demands in very short times This system uses some exciting new building upon our many years of expe- rather than one of infrequent big re- third-party web application develop- rience developing and implementing leases. The QM market has continued ment tools that should be available for integrated software solutions for the to grow in a tough economic climate demonstration at the 2010 Internation- manufacturing, distribution, and retail and we have worked closely with our al Spectrum conference. industries. dealers and users to make migration to Q:What would you like Spectrum QM even easier. We have several deal- Q:What would you like Spectrum readers to watch for in 2010? ers currently working to move all of readers to watch for in 2010? their clients to QM from other Multi- Alongside our usual continual develop- The UniData and UniVerse (U2) data- Value environments. ment program, some of the key things bases are excellent embedded databas- planned for 2010 include an “inter- Alongside a large number of compat- es, however, the need for companies faces” release to make it easier to ac- ibility features, we have added support to support multiple heterogeneous cess a QM database from a variety of for distributed files, concurrent index databases and applications to run dif- other environments, internal changes creation/build, and many extensions to ferent parts of their business will keep to the query processor to provide sig- QMBasic and the command language. growing. This will not only challenge nificant performance benefits, and sup- New data transfer tools simplify the the IT group with managing an increas- port for data replication to hot standby process of moving data and applica- ingly complex environment, but users systems. The query processor changes tions from other environments. will require improved reporting and also open the possibility of support for business intelligence solutions across Support for applications that have us- user written back ends for special data databases and applications. Look for ers spanning time zones has been im- output formats. Kore to respond to these challenges proved by provision of an epoch-based Despite the often voiced feeling that with new products and services that date/time mechanism that identifies a MultiValue databases are on the de- expand our integration suite beyond moment in time independently of the cline, QM continues to attract new U2 to SQL, and include the ability to user’s time zone. Conversion codes are users. Approximately 10% of users integrate any database to any database. available to translate this value to and purchasing QM licenses are new to Moreover, Kore plans to develop inte- from a user’s local time when needed. MultiValue. With this in mind, we are grated business intelligence solutions The range of platforms support by QM launching a self-study training package for key applications and industries. has also grown with certification on that can be used by total beginners or Developing robust web applications the new Windows 7, on Mac OS X 10.6 by experienced programmers moving is still too slow and time-consuming. (Snow Leopard), and a port to AIX. from other systems. Feedback from us- Look for Kore to release new web de- ers working with the development ver- Our new two-year staged payment velopment tools that help developers sions of this package has been good. competitive upgrade pricing policy build and deploy web applications fast- means that the cost of moving to QM er and easier while embracing the best MITS can be lower than the annual mainte- architectural practices. These tools will nance costs for other systems. Q:What new features or services increase developer productivity and did you introduce in 2009? shorten the time to market for new Q:What was the greatest or most 2009 brought several significant addi- web applications. exciting thing that happened to tions and many incremental improve- your company or product in 2009? Kore will look for additional partners ments to both of our products. to expand our partner network with We already have many users in the MITS Discover 7.1, released in August, companies that have products, servic- medical arena, but QM has been cho- adds scheduled, automated email dis- es, and subject matter expertise in key sen as the underlying database for a tribution of summary management in- verticals and products that would com- major new medical system running on formation, fully respecting the security plement Kore’s products and services. Apple Mac servers with potential for model that is built into the product. worldwide deployment. It is too early Continues on page 20

INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM November/December 2009 u 19 MultiValue Industry’s “End Q:What was the greatest or most vation to the task of making corporate of Year” Recap exciting thing that happened to information more accessible and more Continued from page 19 your company or product in 2009? useful.

Additionally, analysis of information While many see 2009 as a year of chal- Northgate Information from different areas can be compared lenges, and it certainly has been, we Solutions at a summary level in a single report. view it as an opportunity to confirm Q:What new features or services For example, while reviewing sales the basic “value proposition” of the did you introduce in 2009? revenue driven by invoicing activity, MITS products. By providing better ac- a user can add columns to a report cess to information, and in-depth analy- Northgate has increased its commit- showing the inventory stock levels of sis of operational results, MITS Report ment to customers by offering long- a product at different points in time. and MITS Discover help organizations term support and flexible license mod- This cross-department view of activity make the most of their limited resourc- els to help organizations through this or asset summaries is a very powerful es, and make better decisions with the tough economic climate. The intro- addition to the product. information that they already have. Pro- duction of application support services gressive companies understand the val- via call-up and draw down support has MITS Report version 2.0.2, released ue of doing more with less, and many proven extremely popular with North- in October, is an incremental update have moved forward with the addition gate’s existing customer base within to our operational reporting system. of MITS to their system. the US. 2009 saw the majority of en- With support for MultiValue as well as hancements to the already proven web relational databases, MITS Report helps Q:What would you like Spectrum service, XML, SQL, data encryption, integrate the various data silos that readers to watch for in 2010? and failsafe functionality all helped our seem to always find their way into an customers achieve new heights and se- organization’s data center. At MITS, we consider the discipline of data access, visualization, and analysis cure Reality’s place within their orga- In 2009 we were very fortunate to wel- to be in a relatively nascent stage. We nization. come many new companies and sever- are hard at work taking our products al new partners to the MITS family. to new levels, bringing significant inno-

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20 u INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM November/December 2009 Q:What was the greatest or most feedback very seriously when develop- to the product including: exciting thing that happened to ing its product roadmap, so watch this WebOI (a web enablement your company or product in 2009? space for more exiting offerings! and development toolkit), a new IDE for the Applica- While the market is shrinking, in the Nozumi Solutions, Cedric tion Manager, a new System Editor++, past year, Northgate has doubled the Fontaine the inclusion of the Bravo Dashboard size of its U.S. operation to handle the from Sierra Bravo Corporation, and resurgence of interest in the Reality Q:What new features or services a new .NET version of the OIPI print product. The appointments of Mark did you introduce in 2009? engine. We also bundled our network Pick, Mark Fuller, and Gail Lawrence to In 2009, Easy Soft released Winnix product, the Universal Driver, with the the Reality team was just the beginning Mobile for Windows Mobile 6, a true purchase of a new license. of the strategy to build the most com- emulator with graphical capabilities for mitted MultiValue offering the market PDA, the only product of this kind for In August, we released a new version of has seen for years. the MultiValue market. our network driver the Universal Driv- er 4.6. The UD 4.6 is offered in two 2009 saw a 400% increase in down- Also, we released a beta version of Win- versions, the free bundled version sup- loaded trial versions and the addition nix 3 with a lot of improvements and plied with OpenInsight 9.x network of many new clients and a pipeline of reworks: ready for Windows 7, print user licenses (NUL) and the standard interest that is likely to be second to wizard integration, device licensing for version to be used with OpenInsight none. 2009 also saw Northgate com- QM, and many more. 8.0 and below as well as Advanced mit over $1 million of additional invest- Revelation. ment into the Reality product to help Q:What was the greatest or most implement market demands, including exciting thing that happened to Initially we were planning on a patch some new features and case insensitive your company or product in release to OI 9.0 but as more and more functionality. 2009? new features were added to the product we decided to do a full product Northgate also secured several new Some Spectrum visitors asked us for release. In September, we released strategic partnerships which it will a way to sign or draw using the stylus OpenInsight Development Suite 9.1 capitalize and go to market within the on the PDA, on Winnix Mobile. Shortly which includes NetOI and RevDotNet. coming months. Not only does North- after, we brought this wonderful idea OpenInsight 9.1 has been extended to gate remain committed to the Multi- to life. We are very excited by all the allow .NET integration using two dif- Value market from a product perspec- things we can do on a PDA using Win- ferent methodologies. Using the NetOI tive, but it announced its commitment nix Mobile. .NET assembly, developers can code to provide support contracts for many entirely in Visual Studio and develop years into the future, which was fully Q:What would you like Spectrum a Windows application that utilizes welcomed by the market. Northgate readers to watch for in 2010? OpenInsight as its data source. Rev- continues to believe and stand by its 2010 will be the mobility year and also DotNet is a set of API calls made from commitment to customers. “When you we’ll work on SaaS. Software as a Ser- within OpenInsight to a .NET control. succeed, we succeed.” vice is a new way to sell software for us. Users are waiting for more than just Q:What was the greatest or most Q:What would you like Spectrum SSH access to a MultiValue database. exciting thing that happened to readers to watch for in 2010? We’ll focus on bringing our solutions your company or product in 2009? Northgate has many exciting pro- to the Web and sell them as a service. First and foremost was the hiring of gressive plans in store in the coming Mobility and web access from the iP- two very talented individuals: Jared months and remains committed to its hone should be considered as a major Bratu and Erik Smith (both of whom customers, openness, growth, and the avenue. are in their twenties). They both bring longevity of the MultiValue market- a fresh perspective to our product de- place! Cloud computing, Software as Revelation, Robert Catalano sign and development. Secondly, we a Service (SaaS), a browser-based dash- Q:What new features or services have weathered this recession without board, hosting, and case insensitivity did you introduce in 2009? compromising product development are just to name a few. All of these ex- and customer service. It has been a dif- citing offerings will be realized by capi- 2009 proved to be a very busy year for ficult year for many of us, but I feel we talizing on the newly appointed strate- Revelation Software. In January, we released OpenInsight Development Suite gic alliances that were secured in 2009. Continues on page 34 Northgate continues to take customer 9.0 which included many new features

INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM November/December 2009 u 21 NEWSMAKERS

Each month the data collection tions run much quicker and the partners, and customers onto time would increase as another ability to manipulate the result our platform. We are excited to month of data needed to be view immediately after the re- help you fulfill your business po- evaluated. “Our initial run of port is executed is a huge win tential with the U2 product fam- several years ago went from a for our users. I believe they will ily, and to provide you the ability couple of minutes to almost an appreciate the added control to get even more out of your U2 Southeast hour for data collection,” says and flexibility.” investment,” said Andy Youniss, Roth. president, CEO, and co-founder For a demonstration of Informer Community of Rocket Software.  Solution — Fast, Web Reporting or a free 30 day College Cuts Flexible, Easy-to-Use trial call us today at 888-703- Data Mining & Reporting Solution 0016 or email at sales@entrin- Using Informer, data evaluation sik.com.  Evaluation Time and collection went from nearly with Informer one hour to under a minute. Southeast was able to create Situation one record with all the required The IT team needed to de- data elements and then ex- Expanding crease reporting and analysis port to an Excel macro file for time for monthly retirement de- additional data manipulation. Northgate posits for over 700 employees Much of this data manipula- Team Gets on the payroll. tion can now be done using the IBM Sells U2 ‘Add Calculations’ feature of In- to Rocket Fuller Challenge — Speed former 4.0. “The whole process Software Northgate has Data Collection & from start to upload is now just Evaluation Time again stepped a few minutes compared to an IBM has signed an agreement Duane Roth, IT Programmer/ up the rapid and hour previously,” says Roth. to sell the U2 assets to Rocket Analyst and the team at South- successful expan- Software, a global software de- east Community College re- sion of its United States Reality Results —Enhanced velopment company. Founded quire a monthly upload be Reporting team with the key appointment in 1990, Rocket is a provider of processed for all retirement de- Capabilities Mean of technology director Mark OEM software to IBM, HP, and posits for 700+ employees on Huge Time Savings Fuller. other Fortune 500 companies. the payroll. This data file must Multiple files are accessed Rocket’s R&D focus has the po- Fuller arrived in California in be sent in a specific file format by Informer in this report and tential to accelerate the growth September with an outstanding with a minimum of five records through links within many of of U2’s business. track record and more than two their reports. “Moving data per employee configured with decades of high-level experi- fields to a different order in the specific field lengths. “We see the acquisition of the ence of developing and imple- report are also a snap,” says U2 products by Rocket Soft- Several years ago they were us- menting the Reality MultiValue Roth. “Reporting capabilities ware as a positive step for IBM’s ing a well-known report writer product. are easy to use and the new partners and users because of to create the multiple records ‘Add Calculations’ feature will Rocket’s deep expertise in da- The 40-year-old father of two, required. The collection pro- deliver significant benefits.” tabase management software from the United Kingdom, will cess took nearly one hour to and Rocket’s 20-year relation- be running and building the format the data for all 700+ What he loves most about the ship as a trusted partner of technical and Customer Expe- employees and send that out- latest release of Informer, says IBM,” said Susie Siegesmund, rience team for Reality, and is put to an MS Excel file for fur- Roth, are the added benefits of director, U2 Data Servers and confident of continuing North- ther manipulations. The Excel using SQL files for input and the Tools, IBM gate’s impressive recent impact ease of formatting the reports. file was then put into a COBOL in this sector. program, and the pre-defined “We have realized significant “Rocket feels privileged to bring formatted output records were time savings”, says Roth. “Selec- the U2 employees, products, “I accepted the challenge of created for the upload. taking on this role because I

22 u INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM November/December 2009 believe in what Northgate is ac- months, with the acquisition of Fuller’s appointment was given ment. With our experience and complishing in North America,” several key contracts. a resounding endorsement by technologies, we are the only said Fuller. “With my technical Vice President, Reality, Mark realistic turning point for com- Fuller, who joins the team as knowledge and expertise we Pick, whose leadership of Real- panies serious about address- Director of Technology Reality will deliver a quicker and great- ity since his appointment last ing those concerns.” USA, has a wealth of product ly enhanced customer experi- year has been credited with re- experience and is also a lead- Northgate’s continued invest- ence.” juvenating the product. ing voice on industry issues. He ment in Reality is a reflection of “We already have a substan- is determined to use his know- “I am delighted to welcome management’s belief that the tial team of resources in place how and experience to provide Mark to Northgate’s USA oper- product’s cost-effectiveness, and are looking for significant the company with a significant ation,” said Pick. “The company resilience, and integration and growth to confirm ourselves as competitive edge in this area. is in the midst of an exciting connectivity abilities make it the leading player in this mar- journey, with our Reality releas- the number one option on the “Businesses are looking to cut ket. ” es including many MultiValue market.  costs during these challeng- flavor features that address our “It is an exciting time for the ing financial times,” said Fuller. migration offerings. company and we have a tre- “They are looking to make mendous platform to build smarter investments in systems “Mark’s unique and diverse upon over the coming years. I which show a genuine return. background, coupled with his can’t wait to show our clients Reality delivers this. deep MultiValue roots and re- the path to driving their busi- seller understanding, will be “I will make a difference by fur- nesses forwards and enhancing an invaluable asset in this long- ther improving Reality’s already their profitability.” term effort. impressive footprint in the Mul- The success of Northgate’s tiValue marketplace.” “There are common concerns commercial team has made in the marketplace at the mo- waves in the industry in recent

INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM November/December 2009 u 23 New Products optional immediate integration REI is committed to eventually Please contact John Racine at with MS Office, and optional implementing the BB4GL on all [email protected] or Tim Bristow scrolling lookups at desired MultiValue platforms, since REI at [email protected] for prompts. has 22 years of MultiValue ex- more information or to place an perience including Mentor, Uni- order. Please see www.racent. Yet powerful as these terminal- Verse, UniData, Sequoia, AP, net for detailed product infor- oriented tools are, the function- Racine R83, and Ultimate. Using avail- mation.  ality of the BB4GL more than able documentation, REI has triples when AccuTerm is em- Enterprises Inc. prepared the software to work ployed with the BB4GL. The on most MultiValue implemen- Releases the BB4GL provides full integra- tations already, using its library tion with MS Office, including Building Blocks of database independence Word, Excel, and Access, from tools. 4GL RAD Tools documents, to spoolers, to re- Racine Enterprises Inc. (REI) is port writing, to stack editing, to REI also provides technical pleased to announce the re- TCL reports downloading. All writing as part of its service of- Datatel Expands th of these not only download, but ferings and the BB4GL is pro- lease of its Building Blocks 4 Its Enterprise Generation Language and Rap- launch the application and auto- fessionally documented. The id Application Development matically open the downloaded documentation is available on- CRM Solution Tools (BB4GL). Providing tools document, from the MultiValue line at www.racent.net. which will compete favorably application side, not the PC ap- with New Higher REI also provides strategic with System Builder, the BB4GL plication side. planning, business and systems Education contains tools which can trans- Five types of GUI menus are analysis, project management, form terminals into GUI applica- Recruitment provided, all of which use the custom software development, tion clients complete with arrow same text scripts. Options can business and IT consulting, Product keys, function keys (labeled and be chosen by user. There is a and MultiValue and MS Office maintainable through a screen), Datatel has strengthened its sophisticated security system training services. REI plans to quick screen repainting for position in the higher education and there are GUI logons, too. offer other products such as thin-clients, advanced GUI field constituent relationship man- Colors and PCL variables are its Purveyor Software (general editing, GUI TCL Stacker, GUI agement (CRM) market with provided to Basic, as well as purpose retail, wholesale dis- spooler menus, sophisticated the introduction of Datatel Re- some limited TCL column PCL tribution/supply, manufactur- sGUI scrolling lookups, GUI cruiter — the latest addition to using B/call/U correlatives. ing, ERP/MRP, and accounting version of the original Multi- the company’s Enterprise CRM The BB4GL can be easily and software), some inventions, and Value ED editor (without F-ing), solution. Datatel Recruiter en- efficiently integrated into exist- perhaps three other complete and GUI Update processor. ables admissions office person- ing source code to give a fresh software packages in the years nel to build strong and lasting The BB4GL also provides im- Windows look and feel to lega- to come. relationships with prospective portant database integrity tools cy source code. REI has partnered with Ramda- students throughout the admis- which surpass those offered Available with limited source ta Systems Ltd. in the U.K. and sions process and beyond. by Oracle, as well as database code, the BB4GL is priced at both will provide support for the independence tools which sup- “CRM is becoming an important $2000 for unlimited use. In- BB4GL product at prices con- port writing MultiValue source strategic investment for higher cluding full source code, the sistent with customers’ service code which is largely MultiVal- education institutions,” said Ni- price is $5,000. REI has re- needs. Ramdata employs the ue RDBMS independent. The cole Engelbert, Lead Analyst cently implemented the BB4GL BB4GL in their Ramdata Opti- BB4GL’s Proc-to-Basic trans- of Vertical Markets Technology on D3, mvBASE, and UniVision mum ERP application aimed at lator provides precise, com- at the Datamonitor Group, and successfully and has immedi- the car aftercare market. pilable Basic source code for author of the study, “CRM in the ate plans to implement it on most procs, such that they work REI is an authorized AccuTerm Higher Education Market.” OpenQM. identically as before, but with dealer and can offer reduced “An enterprise-class CRM helps GUI field editing at all prompts, prices on AccuTerm software. to bring together data from

24 u INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM November/December 2009 three crucial areas: recruitment, institution. This includes true ties will be, and the better the and technical schools across retention, and development,” integration with the database of outcomes will be — top-quality North America partner with continued Engelbert. “Right record, reporting and analytics, enrollment, improved retention Datatel to construct Strategic now, however, the economic and dynamic vertical workflows rates, increased donations, and Academic Enterprises dedi- downturn is prompting many that supply the institution with overall greater satisfaction.” cated to achieving student institutions to focus CRM on a unique and powerful view of success. The company has Datatel Recruiter supplies the recruitment activities in order constituents, enabling admis- focused exclusively on higher admissions office with the infor- to manage the influx of applica- sions professionals to make education since 1979, and its mation it needs to make smart tions and to navigate uncertain- smart decisions that lead to technology is used by nearly decisions and stay on target to ty in admissions yield models greater constituent satisfaction. 800 institutions serving more reach enrollment goals. Datatel more effectively.” than five million students. “Let’s face it, great customer Recruiter includes a complete For more information, visit Datatel’s Enterprise CRM solu- service doesn’t stop once a 360-degree view of all interac- www.datatel.com.  tion reaches beyond the realm student enrolls,” said Datatel tions with prospective students; of admissions and manages Chief Client Officer Liz Murphy reporting and analytics; com- the complete student lifecycle when asked about Datatel’s ho- munications and event man- — from suspect to alumni. With listic CRM approach. “CRM is a agement; list segmentation and the addition of Datatel Recruit- strategy to improve customer targeting; data integrity; and er, Datatel brings even greater satisfaction enterprise-wide. It communication personaliza- CRM value and integration to starts the moment a student tion. the market. visits your web site and continues indefinitely. The more in- About Datatel, Inc. Datatel’s Enterprise CRM solu- sight your institution has about Datatel is the industry’s most tion incorporates comprehen- its interactions with prospective experienced provider of tech- sive consulting services and so- students, parents, alumni, cur- nology products, services, phisticated tools that improve rent students — really everyone and insight to higher educa- constituent satisfaction and pro- — the better and stronger the tion. Colleges, universities, ductivity across all areas of the

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INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM November/December 2009 u 25 Multivalue Everywhere — Everything to follow — reading, writ- Using PHP to Connect U2 Say it with me: ing, and so on — happens via the to the Web UniSession connector. And yes, each Continued from page 6 MultiValue time this connector is called it’ll con- installer isn’t as flexible as the native everywhere... MultiValue sume a database license. Use the Dis- installers mentioned here. everywhere... MultiValue connect() method of the UniSession object to make sure your licenses are Step 3: Get UniObjects EVERYWHERE! properly released when you’re done. The UniObjects connector is installed as part of the U2 Developers Kit (Un- tor works for both databases, each of Step 5: Test the connection iDK for short) and can be installed these smaller functions simply sets Figure 2 shows a quick program to from your U2 client’s installation me- the appropriate database type (1=Uni- test the connection. You’ll need to dia. If you’re having problems locating Verse, 2=UniData) and then calls the supply the appropriate parameters your installation media, contact your generic connector which returns a for the host, user, password, and ac- vendor. Alternatively, you can down- UniSession object (See the UniData count/path. If you have no particular load them from the new Rocket Soft- Developers Guide for more informa- preference for a name, place this in ware web site at rocketsoftware.com/ tion about this object.) You may not your htdocs folders alongside the other u2/downloads/. need both of these functions. If you’re PHP code and call it testu2.php. With using UniData, feel free to ignore the this code in place, open up a brows- Also be sure to get the UniObjects ConnectToUniVerse function, and vice er and browse to http://localhost/ Developers Guide documentation for versa. testu2.php. If all goes according to your environment; you’ll want to keep that reference handy. This can also be HostName = $host; $session->AccountPath = $path; Step 4: Create the PHP→U2 $session->UserName = $user; connector $session->Password = $pw; Figure 1 shows a few functions that $session->DatabaseType = $type; $session->Connect(); can simplify the process of connect- return($session); ing to UniData or UniVerse. Assuming } a stock Apache install, create this file function ConnectToUniverse($host, $user, $pw, $account) as ConnectToU2.php in the C:\Apache { Software Foundation\Apache 2.2\htdocs return(ConnectToU2($host, $user, $pw, $account, 1)); folder. }

Looking at the code in figure 1, note function ConnectToUnidata($host, $user, $pw, $path) the single ConnectToU2 function that { return(ConnectToU2($host, $user, $pw, $path, 2)); is then used by the ConnectToUni- } Verse and ConnectToUniData func- ?> tions. Because the same COM connec- Fig. 1

if($session->IsActive) { echo ‘Connection Successful!

’;

$session->Command->Text = ‘COUNT VOC’; $session->Command->Exec(); echo $session->Command->Response;

$session->Disconnect(); } ?> Fig. 2 26 u INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM November/December 2009 plan, you should see a message that subroutines, execute TCL commands a file and read a record from a UniData says that the connection was success- —just about anything you can do with database. Extracting things from that ful followed by the number of items in the database from BASIC can be done record gets even more strange, as illus- your VOC file. via UniObjects. trated by the PHP loop shown in figure 4. Step 6: Simplify! Be aware, just because it’s possible doesn’t mean it’s going to be straight- To simplify things, any time a UniOb- Now that you have a working connec- forward. In fact, some might even say jects method returns a dynamic array, I tion to your U2 database, the UniOb- the UniObjects syntax can be down- use the code in figure 5 to convert the jects connector has methods to open right wonky at times. Take for example string to a first class PHP nested array. files, close files, read, write, and delete figure 3 which illustrates how to open While this isn’t exactly analogous to a records, work with select lists, call Continues on page 37

$session = ConnectToUnidata(‘localhost’,’user’,’password’,’path’); if($session->IsActive) { $file = $session->OpenFile(‘CUST.KK’); if(!$file->Error) { $file->RecordId = ‘10’; $file->Read(); if(!$file->Error) { $record = $file->Record; } } } Fig. 3

$max = $record->Field(11)->Count; for($ndx = 1 ; $ndx <= $max ; ++$ndx) { echo $record->Value(11,$ndx)->TextValue; Short-LinkS } Fig. 4 What are those short function parseRecord($dynArray) links in the text of { $result = explode(self::$session->FM,$dynArray); some articles? $amCount = count($result); for($amLoop = 0 ; $amLoop < $amCount ; ++$amLoop) As our authors share their knowledge { and experience, they also point you to $attr = $result[$amLoop]; the Web for more info. Some of these if(strpos($attr,self::$session->VM)) URLs are long and cumbersome to use. { $attr = explode(self::$session->VM,$attr); To make the URL easier to read and $vmCount = count($attr); use, we are now using Short-Links for($vmLoop = 0 ; $vmLoop < $vmCount ; ++$vmLoop) to redirect you to the web page the { author recommends. $value = $attr[$vmLoop]; The format (intl-spectrum.com/s9999) if(strpos($value,self::$session->SVM)) drops the “http://www.” from the { $value = explode(self::$session->SVM,$value); front. $attr[$vmLoop] = $value; Most modern browsers fill that in for } you, or you can add it back in. } } Comments or additional suggestions? $result[$amLoop] = $attr; Please drop us a note at } [email protected]

return($result); }

Fig. 5 INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM November/December 2009 u 27 Report Mining

By Brian Leach

oday, more than ever, companies are looking to gain the maximum value from T their IT assets. Vendors are seeking competitive advantages by making their products more appealing. And resources, both in financial and personnel terms, are in

short supply.

Report Mining is one approach that lets you golden opportunities for vendors to differen- broaden the reach of your system by breath- tiate their products. ing new life into one of your most important The problem is that all too often, these capa- assets — your existing reports. bilities are devoid of presentation, and lock Information provisioning and reporting are up critical information in formats that cannot key drivers behind any successful application, be easily distributed and reused to best advan- especially as the application matures and be- tage. Green bar reporting, in particular, ages a comes attuned to the needs of its users. And system, however profound the content. so, reporting capabilities, whether from list- Report Mining is both a technique and a con- ings or code, have always been a core feature cept, changing the way you look at your cur- of the MultiValue model. The ready availabili- rent reports. By adopting the Report Mining ty of management information and the quality mindset, reports are no longer viewed as an of the system-produced reports provide two

Fig. 1 Mining a Report using a Map

28 u INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM November/December 2009 end point — the result of what may be a complex process to assemble, ag- By adopting the Report PICK gregate, and format information — but PROFESSIONAL as a resource to be exploited to the Mining mindset, reports full. For legacy systems in particular, Don’t make the mistake of placing are no longer viewed as your career in the hands of just ANY this shift in approach offers a chance search firm. We are professionals who to turn those old reports into new, vi- an end point — the result understand the importance of brant, and dynamic formats. CONFIDENTIALITY and RESPECT of a of what may be a com- job search, and our database of clients Report Mining solutions take existing is one of the largest in the country. plex process to assemble, Unlike the rest, we will work in YOUR reports, strip out the useful content best interests’ to help you further your from the report body, and turn it into aggregate and format career. Because of our dedication and new resources. In most cases, this professionalism, we are recognized as information — but as a the leaders in the PICK/UniVerse/Unidata means applying a map or template to placement industry in the Tri-State area the report that tells the mining soft- resource to be exploited to and throughout the U.S. So if you are tired of putting yourself at the ware where to find the content, how to the full. mercy of the rest. handle repeating columns of data and word-wrapped columns, how to match CALL THE BEST! Contact... up header and detail information, and So why add the overhead of Report Matt Hart how encoded data should be enriched Mining when you can simply modify your reports to support new formats EXECU-SYS, LTD or reformatted. 1 Penn Plaza, Suite 3306 and can export the data from source? New York, NY 10119 Report mining solutions may be rela- Changing reports is both risky and time (212) 967-0505 tively simple or highly complex, rang- consuming, both for the developer and (800) 423-1964 x 302 ing from parameterized substring ex- for the testing cycle, especially where Fax: (212)947-8593 tractions and fixed layouts to support regulatory requirements are in place. Email: [email protected] for highly varied reports, using anchors and reporting zones to identify differ- The beauty of the Report Mining ap- Consultants Needed Nationwide ent report sections and applying post proach is that the originating code processing in various guises: enrich- does not need to be touched. The new ment, translation, reformatting, and/or reports will need to pass inspection, Feedback restyling. but the full QA cycle is dramatically reduced, especially where the report has Even then, with the speed of modern been produced as the result of a good What came first, systems, report mining is an activity deal of complex processing behind the the letters or the that can take place on-stream, adding scenes. Report Mining is a form of code letters-to-the-editor only a few seconds to the time taken reuse, only at an additional level of re- department? to process a report. These solutions move. of course best suit old-style textual We are making another reports, which is the case for most re- A single report may be mined for sever- change to International ports generated from Basic or inquiry al different outputs, especially for ven- Spectrum Magazine — a languages, since these reports can be dor solutions that need to be adjusted Feedback Department, more easily scanned and their content to individual customer requirements. sometimes known as Letters recognized. Continues on page 33 to the Editor. We want to hear your comments, your reactions, your agreement or disagreement with what you see. Also, do not hesitate to let us know about things happening in the MultiValue Community we may not have heard about yet. Please send your comments by e-mail to: [email protected] Fig. 2 Monarch popularized report mining on the desktop INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM November/December 2009 u 29 Purchase of IBM U2 by Rocket Software

By Nathan Rector

s you have likely heard by now, on October 1, 2009, Rocket Software purchased the U2 as- A sets from IBM. Rocket Software has done a good job holding meetings with individuals as well as the MultiValue community regarding the purchase.

But there have been a lot of speculation and ques- IBM.NET was developed by IBM Information Ser- tions thrown around. This article summarizes many vices, and is owned by IBM. IBM will continue to of those questions and the answers that Rocket provide that API. Rocket Software will be working Software has provided for them. on future joint agreements on how to maintain IBM. NET beyond the limited time frame of the existing Q: What U2 products are moving to Rocket agreement. Software? Q: Will IBM still sell U2 products? All the U2 products will be transferring to Rocket Software: UniVerse, UniData, SB+, SB/XA, wInte- No. Rocket Software has not entered into any spe- grate, U2.Net, Redback, Web/DE. COBOL Direct cific agreement for IBM to continue to sell U2 prod- Connection, Dynamic Connection, UniObjects ucts. Rocket Software will be selling the U2 prod- COM/.NET/JAVA, and the Client Packs found on ucts through partner channels or through direct the CD. sales.

Q: What products will not be moving to Rock- Q: Did Rocket Software purchase the assets et Software? only, or did they request all U2 employees as well? There are a couple of products that worked with U2 that will not be transferring to Rocket Software: When Rocket Software acquired the U2 product, DataStage, U2Stage, Cognos, and IBM.NET. they specifically wanted the U2 engineers, support

30 u INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM November/December 2009 staff, and management as well. Rocket product portfolio. It was a gap that Yes, they have a very extensive BI port- Software prides itself on have the best Rocket Software wanted to fill. folio. They are already planning on hav- engineers it can have, and values ex- ing these products interact with an in- Rocket Software has always thought pertise of the people just as much as terface to UniVerse and UniData. that U2 would be an excellent addition the products they acquire. to their portfolio. It is strategic; it also Q: We chose to go with UniVerse/ fills a need. UniVerse and UniData do Q: Is U2 Lab Services going over UniData because of the company not overlap with anything they have, to Rocket Software? and it was a good strategic fit. that stood behind it and support- Yes. U2 Lab Services is included in the Rocket Software also wanted to make ed it (IBM). What reassurance can acquisition. That is an area that they in- sure that when they filled the data serv- you offer to existing customers tend to grow as well. er gap in their portfolio, they ended that they won’t be left out in the up with a good product and excellent Q: What do you think the biggest cold when there are major issues engineers. Rocket Software wanted to advantage to the user base will make sure they got the people, not just with the product? be? the products, to help grow the busi- Rocket Software has a 20 year track re- ness. UniVerse and UniData had all With the purchase, the U2 product cords as a software company. Rocket those things. will get additional resources that will Software has never in its 20 year history walked away from a product. increase product releases and function- Q: Are there plans to consolidate ality. Rocket Software purchased the UniVerse and UniData into a single The very first product the company U2 with the intention of growing the built 20 years ago is not only still in the business. product? market, it is being run by more custom- No. Rocket Software does not prefer ers than ever before. Q: Will existing IBM U2 certifica- UniVerse over UniData, or UniData “Whether Rocket Software builds it, tions still be valid? over UniVerse. Both are equally impor- or acquires it, we stick with it, and we tant, and both will continue to be en- Yes, they will. The Certifications pro- stand behind it. We offer you 24x7x365 hanced and developed. gram will continue, as long as the U2 tech support. We offer our customers community finds it of value. Improvement and enhancements will everything from a Severity 1, Prior- come in two ways. It will come from ity 1, down to Severity 4, Priority 4,” Q: What about 24x7x365 support the U2 development team and come says Andy Youniss CEO of Rocket Soft- for U2 products? from other parts of Rocket Software. It ware. Rocket Software has a world class will also come from request from the Q: Why haven’t I heard of Rocket 24x7x365 tech support. Many of Rock- user and developer community. et Software’s existing partners, includ- Software before? Q: Will Rocket Software be inter- ing IBM, require that level of support. “It is not Rocket’s style to promote our facing U2 with other Rocket prod- Every year, they request their partners corporate brand. We are much more ucts? to grade Rocket Software’s support on Continues on page 37 responsiveness. They score in the highest percentile every time. Are you realizing the full potential of your IT investment?

Q: What did Rocket Software see With PRC® software configuration management, you don’t have to stop at compliance. Grow that investment into in U2 to want to acquire it? something of real value: immediate control and clarity.

Although this is only something you’ve Branch out with data trails, defined emergency access, change heard about recently, U2 is something control, process documentation, check out/in and Rocket Software has been very inter- automated deployment and rollback. ested in for over two years. Then, scale into best practices that keep you, your auditors, your data and your IT staff Rocket Software’s database business SJ+ Systems Associates happy and productive. has been primarily based around tools, www.sjplus.com and did not have a data server in its 954.796.9868 Let PRC® help your business blossom.

INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM November/December 2009 u 31 Tech Tips

by ClifTON Oliver

Using SET.INDEX on UniVerse Files

ost people are aware that when you create indexes on a file in UniVerse, the index files are stored in a subdirectory in the same directory (account) as the file itself. For example, if your M file is called CUST, all indexes would be stored in I_CUST. This has lead some to the assump- tion that the index subdirectory must always be in the same directory as the file. This is not correct, and assuming that has caused some problems. Although the CREATE.INDEX command creates the I_ subdirectory in the same directory as the file, this is just a default. What you may not realize is that the pathname to the I_ directory is stored in the file header of the main file. For example, if the CUST file is in /AR, it will have the path /AR/I_CUST stored in its header. If you move the I_CUST or both, it is up to you to change the path reference. This is accomplished using the SET. INDEX command. Let’s say you wanted to make a copy of the CUST file for testing purposes. Most likely you would go to the host OS command level and copy the raw file and I_ directory from there, especially if they are large. If you made a copy of CUST and I_CUST from the AR account to the AR.TEST account, you must LOGTO AR.TEST and then use the command SET.INDEX CUST TO /AR.TEST/I_CUST to adjust the path. If you don’t, when you change data in the AR.TEST CUST file, you will be updated the LIVE indexes in the AR account! This is a Bad Thing. If you do not see an I_ directory for a file that you know has indexes, someone has probably moved it to another location for performance tuning. Use the command SET.INDEX CUST INFORM to see where it resides. In these examples I used Unix-style path names. If you are running UniVerse on Windows, you would use Windows path names, of course. But the issues are exactly the same. The TCL command HELP SET.INDEX will show you more options and examples. IS Do you have a Tech Tip to share? E-mail it to [email protected]

Fig. 1 32 u INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM November/December 2009 Report Mining Continued from page 29 Export invoices, delivery manifests, client statements and trading position summaries, currency and stock hold- ings, bills of materials — any report is a potential gold mine. Report Mining is nothing new. The technique was popularized in the 1980s with the introduction of Monarch, a reporting solution from Datawatch. This enabled power users to unlock information derived from legacy systems, often systems with poor communications and poor support for standard data access protocols, by scanning generated reports and storing the data in tables to provide management information. Away from the desktop, most, if not all, MultiValue databases allow reports to be captured in the spooler and post- processed using Basic. By treating these Fig. 3 mvPDF report mining and report restyling tools reports as text, developers can mine them for useful information and popu- late work files, generate spreadsheets, or build XML documents. Third party tools such as mvPDF provide graphical mapping tools to hot-spot report layouts, and support straight through Report Mining with the results passed  directly into merge forms or report lay-  outs to give a new or customized look and feel to old content. So if your system produces critical but dated reports, look on these as a resource and not a burden. Report Mining solutions may be simple or advanced, commercial or in-house developed. But, whatever tools you use, they are a chance to reinvigorate an essential part of your applications. IS

Brian Leach is an independent Mul- tiValue consultant and Vice President of the U2 User Group. Find out more at: http://www.brianleach.co.uk.

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INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM November/December 2009 u 33 MultiValue Industry’s “End ing), and Consumability (file tools, Q:What would you like Spectrum of Year” Recap backup tools, transaction logging). readers to watch for in 2010? Continued from page 21 IBM.NET V9.7, released in the fourth According to business unit executive, will emerge as a stronger company in quarter of 2009, included enhance- Susie Siegesmund, who now oversees the years to come. ments in encryption, performance, the U2 business for Rocket, “the peo- EDM designer enhancements, and gen- ple with whom you have been work- Q:What would you like Spectrum erate WPF/XAML apps. ing will continue to be your primary contacts, and the number you call for readers to watch for in 2010? U2.NET V1.2, released in July 2009, in- support remains the same. No pricing cluded enhancements in NLS, installa- At Revelation Software we are always changes are planned, and — most im- tion, and administration performance. in motion. Our 2010 Users Conference portantly — the development team will will be held at the Rio All-Suite Hotel Web DE V4.4.2, released in June 2009, remain focused on the existing product and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. The included enhancements in integration delivery schedule. We’re very excited conference dates are Tuesday, April (SB/XA support, upgradeability, web about our plans for future growth as a 27 through Friday, April 30, 2010. We and application server versions don’t Rocket brand.” will introduce OpenInsight 9.2 at the need to match). conference. SJ+, Susan Joslyn wIntegrate V6.1.3, released in August OpenInsight 9.2 will include a web 2009, included enhancements in in- Q:What new features or services reporting tool and development tool- teroperability (Excel 2003 Support, au- did you introduce in 2009? kit called “O4W”. The OpenInsight tomation improvements, and IE8 certi- for Web (O4W) Development Tool- The most visible changes to PRC these fication), and supportability (improved days are the revamp of the GUI in prep- kit makes it possible for OpenInsight diagnostics) developers with limited or no HTML, aration for the conversion to XAML XML, or JavaScript experience to de- SB/XA, released in fourth quarter of WPC / Presentation layer interface. It velop feature rich web pages. O4W is 2009, included enhancements in Re- was a big year for changes in regula- designed to work the way OpenInsight port Writer/QRD XPS output (.NET tions, too — PCI, HIPAA’s HITECH Act, developers think, taking advantage of control, client output, client printing), and other outside-U. S. regulations have the skills and knowledge they already multivalue grid and style support, dy- driven a number of changes. New re- have. While users with more web de- namic styling, lookless controls v2, and ports (including Informer reports) and velopment experience can use O4W’s improved readme and search tool. audit logs were built in this year. The advanced features, all developers can slight slow-down in new installations Q: create modern web applications (using What was the greatest or most afforded us the opportunity to upgrade Javascript, XHTML, and Ajax) through exciting thing that happened to most of our customers and to smarten O4W’s Form Builder, Report Builder, your company or product in 2009? up trickier situations, like sub-projects, parallel development, and risk/scope Menu Builder, and APIs. O4W will also The most important occurrence in 2009 basis of projects; and to polish up trig- be an entire browser-based front-end was the acquisition of U2 by Rocket ger-based auditing. Our new slate of for OpenInsight database development. Software. Andy Youniss, president and manuals was completed this year, as The O4W toolkit will run on IE8, Fire- CEO of Rocket Software said, “We are well. fox, Safari, and Chrome browsers. privileged to bring the U2 employees, products, partners, and customers onto Q: Rocket/U2 What was the greatest or most our platform. We see this as a great op- exciting thing that happened to Q:What new features or services portunity to help grow the U2 product your company or product in 2009? did you introduce in 2009? line and to expand its global reach. The acquisition is a natural fit for us — we We’ve had a lot of fun with social net- UniVerse 10.3, released February 2009, have deep expertise in database man- working, this year. The amount of in- included enhancements in Security agement software and it strengthens formation we have found as a result of (Automatic Data Encryption, Enhance- our 15-year relationship with IBM. Our Twitter —following people and from ments), UO.NET SSLStream (Interop- goal is to make this transfer of U2 as- the people who found or followed us erability/Connectivity, PAM / LDAP sets from IBM to Rocket as seamless as — has opened up a lot of interesting Support), Development (U2 Basic De- possible for our partners and custom- material. There is an untapped wealth veloper Toolkit, UO.NET for Compact ers.” of potential in this sort of interaction! Framework), SOA (web We’ve discovered much this year and

services deployment, XML plan to keep exploring. extended API, and encod-

34 u INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM November/December 2009 Q:What would you like Spectrum to enterprise-wide print processes and ers looking to upgrade readers to watch for in 2010? practices. SpoolerPlus now runs on or update their systems. UniVerse, UniData, and QM databases, By utilizing SpoolerPlus, This year the SJPlus.com web site will on .nix and .doz operating systems. their customers are able to be revamped with 2.0 capability and protect their software investment and will include a blog, interactive areas, An inventory subsystem was developed eliminate the need for costly end-user and links to other social networking. and added to customer software to fa- cilitate tracking of product from retail training. As always, watch for new compliance units back to Country of Origin and initiatives but more importantly watch Q:What would you like Spectrum Method of Processing to enable prod- for the opportunities to implement readers to watch for in 2010? uct recall in accordance with recently- best-practices driven by those regula- established federal laws. Our FabMan Manufacturing and Dis- tory requirements. tribution software product will be A Product Information subsystem was ported to QM. FabMan is appropriate Synergetic Data, John R. developed and added to customer for Build-to-Stock, Build-to-Order, Job Wilson software to update retailers’ databases Shop, and Machine Shop manufactur- Q:What new features or services through the international Global Data ers and wholesale distributors. Synchronization Network. did you introduce in 2009? Our EC/EDI*Wizard map-based EDI In 2009, we started offering Profession- Q:What was the greatest or most translator will be ported to QM. The al Services for system integration and exciting thing that happened to Wizard can be installed as a standalone implementation. And, we completed your company or product in 2009? translator, integrated with our FabMan UnForm v8.0 and began beta release at Ashwood Computer, Inc., Cincinnati, Manufacturing and Distribution soft- end of October 2009. Ohio, was appointed an authorized re- ware or integrated with a customer’s seller for SpoolerPlus. Ashwood Com- legacy enterprise software. Q:What was the greatest or most puter specializes in offering a migration Continues on page 36 exciting thing that happened to path to legacy Pick database custom- your company or product in 2009? The release of UnForm v8.0 with major feature enhancements in Document Archiving and Management and Docu- ment Imaging/Scanning. q:What would you like Spectrum readers to watch for in 2010? The full release of UnForm v8.0 scheduled for December 2009.

Sysmark Information Systems, Inc., Dave Taylor Q:What new features or services did you introduce in 2009? SpoolerPlus, our generic Pick print spooler, was ported to the QM database to enable end users to reduce their annual operating expenses by converting their application software to QM without major modification. SpoolerPlus eliminates the expensive rewrite of print statements embedded in programs and procs, the revision of established operating procedures, and the re-training of user personnel related

INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM November/December 2009 u 35 MultiValue Industry’s “End Clif Notes learned? Anybody can claim to be an IT of Year” Recap Continued from page 38 professional. Continued from page 35 I think that most shops have a fairly ac- tomer or vendor inquires. You can’t do curate, honest understanding of their TigerLogic squat. For 15 hours. You might as well strengths and weaknesses. There are, Q:What new features or services have stayed home. however, two extremes that I see way did you introduce in 2009? And one of the latest goofs, gotchas, too often. On the one side are shops We are currently developing new major and gaffs that is sure to be remembered whose personnel think their by-prod- release versions of our D3 and mvBase in the history of Cloud computing as ucts produce no odor, and nobody is products. These products will be in the an example of how to simultaneously as smart as they are. Well, their turn is beta cycle in 2009, followed by general tarnish your reputation and create a PR coming. Pride goes before a fall. availability in early 2010. Features in- and legal nightmare in the process, we The other side is a bit more common. clude two new APIs — .NET API and have the T-Mobile debacle. T-Mobile A number of shops seem to have an Java API — built into the base D3 and Sidekick users were informed that all inferiority complex. If a company is mvBase products. The new APIs will of their contact, calendar, etc. data bigger, has more employees, performs provide enhanced connectivity and was “almost certainly” lost due to a data storage and access or applications reduce dependency on secondary or server failure at the data center of Mi- a core business, well, they must be third-party connectivity products. crosoft’s subsidiary, Danger. (I’m not smarter, more knowledgeable, and ex- going there; that’s way too easy. I do In addition, we are introducing Tiger- perienced than us, right? have some shame left.) The first ques- Logic’s XDMS technology into the Mul- tion one has to ask is how any compa- Well, when you, as I have, sit next to tiValue community. TigerLogic’s XDMS ny storing customer’s data about their enough full-time system “administra- technology provides enhanced support work and life could not have backups? tors” who won’t type the command for multivalued data XML transforma- you are telling them is needed to fix tions, data integration, data caching, A couple of days later, T-Mobile/Micro- a problem but keep typing the same and multivalued database application soft/Danger, whoever is behind these failing command over and over appar- access via web services. announcements, told users that most ently expecting the computer to get of the data would be recovered. This tired, give up, and finally accept it, you Q:What was the greatest or most prompts the second question: how can might come to the same conclusion I exciting thing that happened to a group of IT professionals not know have over the last three decades. your company or product in 2009? that they had a backup and a way to The company has a renewed focus on recover from it? Size of company, number of IT employees, or number of said employees hav- our MultiValue products and technol- And this, my friends, is my current con- ing some kind of vendor certification ogy. This revitalization has lead to the cern with the state of cloud computing. has absolutely no correlation to com- development of our upcoming major Yes, I am also concerned over security, petence. So don’t just turn your data, release versions of D3 and mvBase, privacy, company longevity, and all of and the welfare of your company, over both upgrades provide customer-driv- those. But the question that keeps scar- to some cloud computing outfit just en product enhancements into the ing me is, “What kind of idiots are we because of cost analysis. Don’t assume MultiValue marketplace. turning our data over to?” that since this is their full-time business Q:What would you like Spectrum I learned this lesson the hard way. A they must be better at it than you and readers to watch for in 2010? domain hosting service I was using in- your staff are. Investigate. Find out the formed us that due to a hardware fail- statistics. Insist on Service Level Agree- Watch for the exciting new product re- ure, we had lost several days worth of ments. leases of D3 9.0, mvBase 3.0, and our e-mail and any web site updates. In tak- TigerLogic XDMS XML solution for the If you don’t examine these issues care- ing a more careful look, I discovered MultiValue community. These prod- fully, you may be accidentally turning that their “real-time backup” claim was ucts will be followed by additional new your data and processing — your com- nothing more than SAN-based disk mir- product releases that continue to focus pany’s lifeblood — over to a bunch of roring. They were claiming the mirror on the requirements of our customers. bozos. At that point, you’ve joined the as their backup! When the entire SAN It is a very exciting time for TigerLogic, ranks of those depending on Clown took a nose dive, obviously the back- our partners and our MultiValue cus- Computing. IS up, well, wasn’t. So these days I do tomers. IS my own backups just like I did when I was running my own server. Lesson

36 u INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM November/December 2009 Multivalue Everywhere — The dream is real and it’s available to- Purchase of IBM U2 by Using PHP to Connect U2 day. So say it with me: MultiValue ev- Rocket Software to the Web erywhere... MultiValue everywhere... Continued from page 31 Continued from page 27 Multivalue EVERYWHERE! focused on brand identity for the busi- dimensioned array, using the power of Note: This code illustrates using simple nesses that we acquire. Many of you do PHP arrays this conversion makes it sig- PHP to use the UniObjects connector not know Rocket, but do know Blue- nificantly easier to access the informa- but it is by no means the only option. Zone, Arkivio, Servergraph, LegaSuite, tion from the U2 record. PHP 5 has an excellent object model Seagull, Mainstar, ASTRAC, SmartDB, You may also have noticed that we’ll that allows a developer to create a class AeroText, and many other brands that need to call the ConnectToUniData or that wraps around UniObjects, simpli- we’ve acquired. fying the API and minimizing the num- ConnectToUniVerse function on each “Our strategy for U2 is to continue to ber of individual scripts needed for har- page where we want the connection. promote that brand along with the ness all of that functionality. IS This has the unwanted side effect of UniVerse and UniData product names potentially storing authentication cre- (don’t read anything in to the order dentials in each page that connects to Kevin King is the Presi- of those two names; I could have eas- the database. To combat this, we can dent and Chief Technologist ily just typed UniData and UniVerse),” use a couple of other files as shown in with Precision Solutions, says Andy Youniss CEO of Rocket Soft- figure 6 (ConnectToUniVerse.php) and ware in an open letter to the U2 com- Inc., a leader in technol- figure 7 (ConnectToUniData.php). munity. ogy solutions, support, and With these files in place, we can get a “Some of you have already noted that connection to the database using a sim- training. He is also the author of SB+ So- Rocket has an OEM heritage. As a com- ple one line include() or require() in lutions, an enthusiastic private pilot, and pany who grew up on the software our PHP script. Of course, if you need Christian guitarist and producer... as time OEM model and continues to have a to access more than one account you’ll large, growing OEM business, we are allows. need a variation on this theme for each very comfortable with Rocket being account. Just remember that the fewer the brand behind the brand. We are places you store credentials the more here to make our partners as successful secure your site will be and the easier as possible with our technology.” it’ll be to change later. Q: Where can I find out more While UniObjects is a far from ideal connector for PHP, it does provide about the U2 Purchase? an easy way to get access to your U2 There is an open letter to the U2 Com- data and is far superior to some of the munity on Rocket Software’s web site: other connectivity options. With just a www.rocketsoftware.com/u2 IS little bit of code there’s no reason why our MultiValue information cannot be accessible via web browsers, smart phones, web kiosks, and other perva- sive devices.

Fig. 6

Fig. 7 INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM November/December 2009 u 37 Clif Notes Continued from page 39

Subscribe on-line at Well, if it works for something like www.intl-spectrum.com e-mail, what about complete applica- or tions? Enter another buzzword: SaaS fax this form to (603) 250-0664 (Software as a Service). One of the first and keep Spectrum magazines and most successful SaaS companies is coming free for 1 year!! Salesforce.com. They provide a wide range of CRM solutions, and all you have to do is sign up. No servers to buy. No software to buy, write, or install. All Name Title you need is an Internet connection and a browser. (Well, and a checkbook.) Company They take care of application program- ming, data storage, backup, the whole Address mess. What’s not to love?

City State Zip Most of the appeal of the Cloud can be summed up in the phrase, “save a buck Phone Fax by passing the buck.” But costs and (you think) responsibilities are not the E-mail Web Site only things you are passing to someone else. You are also passing control to Signature D date outsiders. Control of your data, control of your security, and, to a certain degree, control of your company. (All questions must be answered. Incomplete forms will not be processed. Complimentary subscriptions are limited to U.S. addresses.) Whenever you see a cloud used in a computing illustration, it is invariably 1. What is your job function/title? Principal/Owner Sales/Marketing a pretty, white, fluffy thing. It invokes President/GM/CEO Programmer/Analyst feelings and memories of idyllic days MIS/DP Manager Purchasing laying on one’s back watching the Controller/Financial Consultant clouds go by, not a care in the world. VP/Department Head Other But people forget that sometimes a ______cloud can turn into a dark, towering 2. Is your company a (check one): cumulonimbus with hail the size of Computer System Supplier Dealer/OEM/VAR Software House golf balls and turbulence that make Consultant End User Other ______747s squeal and run for cover. And the

3. What MultiValue Databases does your company use? (check all that apply) Cloud is no different. D3 Native MultiValue Reality Other ______The first time Google’s Gmail had a

multi-hour outage, you would have jBASE uniData UniVerse uniVision thought the world was coming to an 5. What major business/industry most clearly describes your company? end, especially since it affected not Accounting Medical Direct Marketing Legal only the free service but their paying Banking/Finance Dental Construction Retail customers. But now it has happened Education Insurance Other ______enough that it seems people are get-

6. What are your firm’s approximate gross annual sales? ting used to it. Under $500,000 $500,000 - $1 million Then there’s an incident with Workday Over $1 million - $5 million Over $5 million - $10 million — a provider of SaaS-based financials, Over $10 million - $25 million Over $25 million - $100 million payroll, and HR applications. Imagine Over $100 million - $500 million Over $500 million coming to work and finding that all of your financials are unavailable. You F r ee Sub s c r iption can’t invoice. You can’t answer cus- IS 03/08 Continues on page 36 38 u INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM November/December 2009 Is Your Head in the Cloud? Clif by Clifton Oliver Notes

loud computing seems to be all the rage these days. If you read any of the trade papers and C magazines, it is hard to find an issue that doesn’t have some kind of article or story about it. It would appear that cloud computing is the newest Best Thing. As with most buzzwords, cloud computing is a term that can mean a lot of different things to different people. The ever present online encyclopedia of dubious accuracy, Wikipedia, which itself lives in the Cloud, defines it as:

“…Internet (“cloud”) based development and tion within it, chances are your customers expect use of computer technology (“computing”). to be able to place pickup orders by e-mail. Conceptually it is a paradigm shift whereby But to provide and maintain your own e-mail ca- details are abstracted from the users who no pabilities is a pain. You have to have a server. You longer need knowledge of, expertise in, or need to understand and be able to install and con- control over the technology infrastructure “in figure the software. Then there’s antivirus software the cloud” that supports them. Technically it to keep updated. Don’t forget the spam filtering typically involves the provision of dynamically that requires periodic care and feeding. Oh, yeah, scalable and often virtualized resources as a and the Internet connection and bandwidth. service over the Internet.” Now imagine those problems, equipment costs, Ok. Right. So the Cloud is the Internet. Or a meta- and labor scaled up to a company with hundreds phor for the Internet. Or the stuff the Internet de- of employees working from all over the globe. It livers. Or that you can access with the Internet. It kind of makes your head hurt. Oh, and now mar- can refer to data storage you rent, virtualized pro- keting wants to start e-mailing electronic newslet- cessors you pay for on a usage basis, applications ters to thousands of customers. Your e-mail needs you run, or any number of other things. In general, fluctuate, but you have to buy the equipment and whatever you can do in your own data center — bandwidth to handle the highest loads even if those provide e-mail, edit and store documents, run a peaks only happen 10% of the time. CRM or ERP application — you can do in the cloud. But why would you want to? It’s easy to see the appeal of just offloading that whole mess to an outside service. In addition to In a word, money — as in spending less of it. Let’s reducing your costs, you reduce your headaches. take the simple example of e-mail. In today’s envi- Now, if a vulnerability is found in the e-mail soft- ronment, e-mail is necessary for almost all business- ware, you don’t have to schedule people to work a es. Maybe your lawn service can get by without it, weekend to install the fix. That’s somebody else’s but your hospital certainly can’t. Want to run a deli? problem. Depending on the size of your city and your loca- Continues on page 38 INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM November/December 2009 u 39 “The dashboard shows the top five troubled accounts and we have them (sales people) being active with turning those accounts around.

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