Revelation Software announced the availability of the latest release of OpenInsight (OI) 8.0.   OI 8.0 provides many new features including: Arev32, a console-based application window for running Arev-based applications; Banded Report Writer; Drag and Drop; TCL Assistant; Engine Server and Telnet Server; and performance enhancements to the U2 Connector. The 8.0 release also includes enhancements to OpenInsight's Application Manager, UI Workspace, Form Designer/Presentation Manager, Table Builder, System Editor+, Web Interface including OECGI2, Report Builder, OIPI, CTO and the Client Server Workspace.

Release 8.0 is the culmination of over one year's development that has touched almost every entity within the product.  It is a free upgrade to current members of Revelation's Works Program.

"We have extended OpenInsight by bridging the past with the Arev32/CTO interfaces as well as embracing the future with the implementation of Drag and Drop and our Engine Server/OECGI2 technology", said Robert Catalano, Director of Sales, Revelation Software.

"I am happy to show that our commitment to our existing users and developers is more than just hyperbole", said Mike Ruane, President/CEO Revelation Software. "We have listened to our community across the globe and integrated the features that make OpenInsight an incredibly robust feature rich product."

OpenInsight 8.0 will be featured in Revelation's upcoming tradeshow schedule , including Revelation's User Conference in Las Vegas in May, 2008.

Initial Need: be able, from the same application, to open more than one windows at a time in Winnix , and switch from one to another.

Our solution: till now with Winnix and many competitors, you had to open many sessions and possibly use more than one access to the database. The solution is now there and it's part of Winnix development components.

WXDETACHE makes a clone from the active window. By adding, with this component, a button "detach" in your application, the main window is duplicated and available all the time.  It's frozen and not linked anymore to the server but it offers a way to view data in an independent manner (schedule viewing, stock...).

WXDETACHE is now available for all the users of Winnix development components, with a valid support contract. Development components are basic routines and scripts developed to help development work in Winnix. They are available under license, by developer, from Easy Soft . Contact us to know more about it.

Execu-Sys, ltd - Positions Available

Fortune 1000 company located in Memphis, TN is seeking a Sr P/A with strong PICK (Universe) development skills. Excellent opportunity to eventually xtrain into other technologies. Salary to 75K with excellent benefits and relocation assistance.

For additional information contact Matt Hart at (800)423-1964 x302 or mh@eslny.com

Electronic Data Processing PLC said its chief executive Richard Jowitt died suddenly May 22, 2007.

The company said it will now look to quickly appoint an acting chief executive, pending further discussions on appointing a permanent successor.

Michael Heller, Chairman of EDP, said: 'It is difficult to overstate the significant contribution that Richard made to building EDP over 37 years. His enthusiasm was tireless. He led the transformation of the Group from a computer bureau, through a hardware seller to now a software and services business enjoying growing success. At the same time he has developed a loyal and capable team around him.'

PayEx Finance is an authorized credit market company under the supervision of the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority. The company, established in 1972, is today one of the leading companies in Europe providing payment processes with offices in Visby, Stockholm, Oslo and Copenhagen.

When PayEx discovered limitations with transaction throughput rates on their PayEx Online application, they looked to the power of BlueFinity's mv.NET to integrate and access data in real-time. Now, PayEx is gaining significant growth and improved customer satisfaction from the mv.NET implementation.

The Need for Speed

At the heart of the PayEx organization is a powerful web application: PayEx Online. PayEx Online is an efficient, user-friendly Internet-based application, designed to simplify companies' ledger monitoring and customer management.  It utilizes an IBM UniData database on Sun Solaris and was largely developed using IBM RedBack (now renamed U2 Web Development Environment) in Visual Basic 6 and VB.NET. 

Early in 2006 PayEx was starting to suffer from throughput and performance limitations imposed by RedBack technology.   Using a common data access layer for all database data access, PayEx Online utilized over 150 back-end UniBasic routines incorporating RedBack Objects, RBO-related code.

One major issue was the compatibility between the Unidata and RedBack applications.  "Reading records while Unidata DBPause was active didn't work via RedBack," explains Bjorn Eklund, Head of Development at Payex. "Each night we had to pause the database to run backups or to perform other administrative tasks which meant stopping PayEx Online.  This imposed a sever restriction on our customers."

In an attempt to improve transaction throughput rates, reduce application downtime during database backup periods and solve the DBPause restriction, PayEx undertook an extensive examination of mv.NET as an alternative to RedBack. 

The mv.NET Advantage

mv.NET provides a 100% native .NET interface to all MultiValue database platforms, allowing .NET developers to access all aspects of MultiValue systems – both data and program code - from within their .NET application.   Its seamless integration with Microsoft Visual Studio provides a potent rapid application development environment enabling MultiValue developers to harness the full power of both their MultiValue system and the Microsoft .NET framework.

mv.NET's Core Objects provides a wealth of end-user capabilities allowing the developer to rapidly create feature-rich, high performance applications using the powerful tools provided by Microsoft's .NET environment. Core Objects also has strong integration with Microsoft's Visual Studio.NET product, allowing the MultiValue developer to carry out virtually all aspects of application creation from within the VS.NET environment.

A key aspect of all .NET implementations is managing the connections between the user interface and the database. mv.NET's Session Manager makes certain that those connections are handled in the most efficient and cost-effective way, ensuring that users get outstanding response from their MultiValue applications. 

Proof Positive

Benchmarking test results clearly demonstrated that the average throughput with mv.NET was orders of magnitude faster than RedBack.  In fact, the performance overhead per call was reduced from 60 ms to 6 ms! 

Throughout the testing period, PayEx also discovered there were other significant overheads to running RedBack.  "Using RedBack, we had to develop and build specific RBO-related code in order to access Unidata subroutines," Eklund explains. "But mv.NET removes that requirement and we can now use the same routines in Payex Online as in our standard Unibasic batch programs.  There is no need for additional time and effort to develop and support RBO-related code.  This, of course, offers us significant cost and time savings.  Last but not least, mv.NET solved the DBPause issue opening up the PayEx Online service and therefore improving customer satisfaction."

Making the Move to mv.NET

It was immediately clear that mv.NET offered the solution PayEx were looking for to take their application forward in the global marketplace, and a full migration to mv.NET was identified as being straightforward and well within acceptable timeframes and budget.

The conversion project took less than three months and included some very intensive application testing to go live right on schedule at the end of August 2006.  "The go live of PayEx Online went exactly to plan and without any last minute panics," comments David Cooper, Lead Developer at BlueFinity.  After the migration, data access times were consistently reduced by over 50% during periods of both light and heavy load.

Today, PayEx Online operates smoothly using mv.NET technology.  Eklund comments, "BlueFinity were able to provide a complete turnkey solution giving us peace of mind from initial conception through the conversion and then to final, live implementation.  We are extremely pleased that we've met our goals to offer performance and efficiency improvement solutions to our customers' existing investments."

For more information, visit www.bluefinity.com for specific information on BlueFinity's RedBack replacement program.

SB+ Tabbed Folder screen is being used more in SB+ application due to its dynamic and efficient functionality. The following technical tip will show you how to change the title and the icon on a Tabbed Folder screen giving you, as a developer, more power to control the look of your SB+ Tabbed Folder screens.

When using tabfolders, @FORM is the handle to the tabfolder rather than the window which contains it. To get the handle to the parent window use a syntax as follow:

Create a paragraph similar to the following to change the icon:

LOCAL L.GUI, PARENT
PARENT = GETATTR(@FORM, G.PARENT)
L.GUI = SETATTR(PARENT, "icon", @SBCLIENT<4,1>:"\BMP\Tools.ico")

Create a paragraph similar to the following to change the title:

LOCAL L.GUI
MAINFORM = GETATTR(@FORM,G.PARENT)
L.GUI = SETATTR(MAINFORM,G.TITLE,"MY HEADING")

The actual tabfolder's properties are accessible using @FORM.

Implemented for release 5.2 and higher of SB+/SBClient, the icon to be used for tabfolder form can be specified in appropriate GDS item (LOOKUP.GUIDEFS, 'tabfolder' class).