2016 MultiValue Industry End-Of-Year Recap
Ashwood
What new features or services did Ashwood introduce in 2016?
We've made dramatic improvements to our ForeMost ERP Scheduling and Time and Attendance modules and we have enhanced our MRP Logic also. Our work with our mvTools on several customers sites is receiving rave reviews. Our FastBac back-up preprocessor tool significantly increases the usefulness and value of our customer's server snapshots and this is something almost every site we work with is doing now or will be in the very near future! We're offering NEW Monthly Preventive Maintenance Systems Services for our customers whether their servers reside on-site or off and providing proactive systems support as opposed to the reactive support that many companies are used to.
What was the greatest or most exciting thing that happened to your company or product in 2016?
We have another NEW ForeMost customer! Cleveland Vibrator Company in Cleveland Ohio went live in 2016 and Our ATeam is growing, we've added two exceptional new team members in 2016, Teresa Thomas is helping us to improve ForeMost as is Jon Kristofferson our new Technical Services Manager!
What would you like Spectrum readers to watch for in 2017?
The continued, rapid evolution of our ForeMost ERP solution, Cloud Hosted ForeMost Solutions, Our NEW ForeMost SaaS Solution, Our NEW Multi-tenant ForeMost Solution.
Entrinsik
What new features or services did Entrinsik introduce in 2016?
For over ten years we've been offering Entrinsik Informer as a reporting solution that empowers end-users to access data from multiple sources real-time, particularly MultiValue, and report off that data in numerous ways. This year our R&D team has been working very hard at architecting the most significant upgrade to our Informer software. With this new release we've evolved the product into an agile data discovery platform to interactively do comparative analysis while automatically generating reports and visualizations. Currently in late alpha testing with overwhelmingly positive feedback from users, Informer 5 delivers advanced data analytics, data governance, visualizations, collaboration all in one platform. Pretty cool.
What was the greatest or most exciting thing that happened to your company or product in 2016?
This has been an exciting year for Entrinsik, both with our Informer and our Enrole products. Because of the way Informer has been re-architected in this upcoming release, end users are now intelligently guided through each phase of the data discovery process. The market is flooded right now with complicated BI and data discovery solutions and we've intentionally developed Informer with an emphasis on ease of use, intuitiveness, and speed. If users need to discover key information often hidden in the data, Informer actually suggests meaningful visualizations; then you can use them, not use them, modify, customize, or add different data points to it. Informer then also allows users to collaborate with each other to comment on different report results, glean insights from the data, and create teams to work on data together. It's a truly powerful solution and we can't wait to get it into the hands of as many people as possible.
What would you like Spectrum readers to watch for in 2017?
In addition to launching Informer 5 and continuing to expand Enrole into continuing education departments around the world, Entrinsik is gearing up for our ICON 2017 conference where hundreds of Informer and Enrole users will gather together to learn more about the latest updates to the Informer and Enrole platforms. ICON 2017 will take place in Raleigh, North Carolina from April 26 to 28, 2017 and will feature breakout sessions with members of the Informer and Enrole product development teams, panel discussions on best practices and methodologies, training sessions, and round table discussions specific to different industries. The conference is going to be a fun time to celebrate the new release of Informer with an Informer 5 Launch Party! Space is limited so reserve your spot today before the early bird discount expires at http://www.entrinsik.com/icon2017/.
HDWP
TCADS, LLC is releasing their new app before the end of the year. BeBackBy is a virtual safety net for hikers, bikers, and backpackers.
We have started making the rounds of trade shows, established a new, more modern websites, and overhauled our software infrastructure, putting Ladybridge's OpenQM at the heart of our project.
Spectrum readers should watch the market re-align. Tablets are starting to lose market; the smart watch craze is starting to die off. Unsurprisingly, the computer (laptop, desktop, server) is still the go-to for most work despite all the new options.
HDWP, Inc. is releasing their first boardgame/cardgame Etandavos: Chaos. We are planning a line of MV-related technical books in partnership with International Spectrum.
Ladybridge
What new features or services did Ladybridge Systems Ltd introduce in 2016?
Alongside many small developments requested by our users, we added two new interfaces to QM, a "pure Java" API and Python support.
The pure Java API is part of the QMClient connectivity features. We have had a Java API for several years but this was based on the Java Native Interface (JNI) which meant that we needed a separate version for each platform. The JNI version will continue to be supported for a while but the new pure Java version removes the need for the JNI and is fully portable across all systems that support Java.
Although Python has been around for many years, there has been a growing interest in using Python as a programming language in MultiValue applications. Our approach has been to provide a Python wrapper for QMClient, allowing Python programs to access QM data files, execute commands, call subroutines, etc. By using QMClient we maintain the managed environment provided by QM, removing the risk of application errors causing hard to debug failures of QM and also avoiding the maintenance issues that would be created by integrating the Python interpreter into the core QM engine. QMBasic applications can also execute Python programs.
we
Our development plans continue to be largely driven by requests from our users and we take great pride in our responsiveness to these requests. Our underlying goal is to take MultiValue forwards by enhancing the core features of the environment.
We will be at both the Spectrum Conference in Phoenix and the Zumapalooza conference in Las Vegas. We look forward to meeting existing and prospective QM users.
ONSystex
2016 was a big year for Onsystex. We expanded our suite of MultiValue capabilities with three new products designed to help companies take advantage of dozens of new technologies while continuing to leverage their MultiValue applications.
OASYS|OMNI provides a complete API configuration framework which exposes MultiValue data and business logic as REST API's. Easily managed by existing MultiValue teams, these API's are being used in 50 installations to drive cloud integrations, new mobile applications and replace of legacy modules with modern new capabilities.
OASYS|BRIDGE delivers a bi-directional real-time replication service to enable data to flow back and forth between MultiValue and SQL. In doing so, we enable an entirely new generation of application development and integration possibilities. Most importantly opening your systems up to modern Business Intelligence solutions.
OASYS|WEB leverages an innovative 'screen-scrape' technology to generate a fully responsive .NET based web interface. OASYS|WEB rapidly paints a modern web/mobile experience on traditional green screen applications. We have invested heavily in automating many design tasks to accommodate the unique emulations and characteristics of MultiValue Applications.
These products experienced rapid adoption and are easy to implement. In 2017, we expect to launch a suite of pre-canned OASYS |OMNI services which will further speed integration development. Coupled with our modernization strategy practice, we are helping companies navigate the complexities of bringing their MultiValue application into the 21st century by seamlessly expanding the MultiValue application to function with the latest technologies (Web, mobile, BI, Cloud, etc.) and teams working to deliver the solution.
Rocket Software
What new features or services did International Spectrum introduce in 2016?
In 2016, Rocket Software announced the availability of a brand new product for MultiValue: Rocket Discover for MultiValue (MV), a collaborative Business Intelligence (BI) solution custom-built to provide the deep insights MV customers want without having to rewrite their applications. With its native interface to Rocket D3, UniVerse, and UniData databases, users can easily connect to MV data sources through secure Web services and use Discover's intuitive interface for data visualization and discovery.
For the first time, MV users can easily create dashboards and visualizations to help drive their business forward without having to take data out of MV and spend hours massaging it to get key insights. As a collaborative BI solution, Discover enables executives and business users to experience a hands-on approach to BI exploration and visualization. Discover's intuitive drag-and-drop interface simplifies and speeds data analysis while reducing reliance on IT personnel. The addition of new BI capabilities reinforces Rocket's commitment to its customers to maximize investment in the MV platform. For more information on Rocket Discover for MV, visit http://www.rocketsoftware.com/products/rocket-discover/rocket-discover-multivalue
What was the greatest or most exciting thing that happened to your company or product in 2016?
Rocket MultiValue customers and partners have told us that attracting and retaining developers to work with BASIC can be a challenge. To help address this, Rocket has extended the database and application programming capabilities of Rocket UniVerse to include Python, a dynamic and modern object-oriented programming language. Rocket Software now includes support for the popular Python programming language in late 2016. The addition of native Python support opens UniVerse development to a new generation of programmers versed in open source language and tools, making it easier to hire qualified engineers and developers. We chose Python for a number of reasons:
The extensive support libraries significantly reduce the number of lines of code to be written
The availability of third-party tools and resources makes Python capable of interacting with many other languages and platforms
A large development community with many recent college graduates provides a great pool of Python talent that MV customers can draw from
The initial release of Python is supported on Windows and Linux for UniVerse
What would you like Spectrum readers to watch for in 2017?
In early 2017, Rocket Software will introduce the Python programming language for our UniData product to let our partners and customers to easily extend UniData applications and attract and retain new development talent. This latest release of UniData will also include:
Replication enhancements which will contribute to improved performance, additional protection, and more insight
Audit Logging to help with meeting compliance requirements including HIPAA, HITECH, PCI-DSS, SOX, and others
BASIC enhancements to improve performance
Security updates necessary to help protect your business such as the ability of UniData to accommodate future OpenSSL updates that Rocket releases independently of having to update UniData itself.
In accordance with the Rocket Customer Bill of Rights, we're putting Customers First: Our Engineering team has focused on improved reliability and stability for your applications. We have resolved hundreds of reported issues, and are delivering many usability enhancements in this release.
SJ+
SJ+ Systems Associates, Inc. and PRC, our industry-leading software development lifecycle management tool, had a banner year in 2016. PRC has spread to new industries and platforms while rising to meet new challenges in seemingly contradictory governance and productivity. At a quarter of a century now - being already a Grand Dame (but don't say that about its author!), the software continues to mature. Software development teams all over the world rely on PRC in their drive to produce high quality solutions in record-breaking time with global resources. PRC is focused on the specific governance and technical challenges, incorporating new methodologies while meeting new requirements so that IT teams can focus on making the best use of them to achieve their goals. This year we've seen several approaches to agile development using PRC, a broader offering of PRC to Epicor users and to DesignBais developers. 2017 will see still wider availability in Multivalue and SQL platforms. Our mission has always been to make governance and transparency "the easier way" and to provide governance and metrics as a side-benefit to robust productivity tools and programmer gains. In the coming years, we will enable developers to take their MultiValue skills and the easy automation of PRC with them wherever opportunity takes them. Watch for announcements of platform availability early in 2017.
Zumasys
What new features or services did Zumasys introduce in 2016?
In 2016, we welcomed Technical Evangelist Patrick Payne to help educate our MultiValue customers on how they can use the "open" standards driven by companies like Google and Twitter and the new development tools they've produced. Using this methodology, customers can easily interface these tools with MultiValue systems and build a new modern user interfaces (UI) with off-the-shelf tools that appeal to younger developers, connect to any Pick database via. JSON, and position MultiValue within the NoSQL movement.
What was the greatest or most exciting thing that happened to your company or product in 2016?
2016 was all about growth for our MultiValue products. Sales of our AccuTerm remote access software grew an astounding 75%, primarily due to platform upgrades, new flexible licensing options and AccuTerm's long history of providing rock-solid SSH security and reliability. We also saw 67% growth in OpenQM, our high-performance MultiValue database, thanks to QM's very competitive price point and object-based programming features.
And since buying jBASE two years ago, we've added more net-new customers than it had in the prior ten years. jBASE is getting young developers excited about MultiValue because programs now sit natively on Linux, Windows or AIX. Everybody wants a new UI for their character screens and jBASE makes it much, much easier by leveraging non-Pick programmers and newer programming standards/methods.
What would you like Spectrum readers to watch for in 2017?
In January 2017, we will release jBASE 5.6, which is packed with even more significant new features—most notably RESTful Services, which exposes jBASE to every language environment without proprietary APIs. With RESTful Services, jBASE can receive requests from JavaScript and return results back using JSON.
Mark your calendars for Zumapalooza 2017, which will take place May 15-17, 2017, at the M Resort in Las Vegas. With over 500 attendees, 50 breakout sessions and three days of MultiValue tracks, Zumapalooza is the premier technical conference for cloud, infrastructure, and software technologies. Zumapalooza is the largest annual gathering of MultiValue users and partners and our Early Bird Registration will offer free conference passes this year for a limited number of attendees. You can find more information at www.zumapalooza.com .
Throughout the year, we will also continue executing on our SaaS strategy to bring together all of our software products with the Zumasys Cloud.
