Re: New-Era, how good is it?

If someone wants to complain about too long messages, too much philosophy or whatever, feel free. I simply find it important that Informix as well as everybody else understands the the tools market as it is currently developing. This is meant to help Informix develop and market the greatest tools possible. They have the basics done better than most in New Era, but they have some way to go to make it great. I would like to see a continued discussion on this topic. > Randall Rhea <randall> writes: > >> Someone else writes: > >> I wonder whether Informix will let NewEra die on the vine like they > >> did with Wingz/Hyperscript ... my opinion is that Informix does not > >> know how to compete in the PC software market > > Wingz/Hyperscript was a product that was acquired by Informix as part > of the merger with Innovative Software. It was a spreadsheet that competed > directly with Lotus and Microsoft. You are right: Informix is not in > the shrink-wrap software business, and although Wingz was a great product, > we could not compete effectively in this business. > > NewEra is not a shrink-wrap, mass-produced tool like Visual Basic or > Powerbuilder. It is a professional object-oriented programming language > for developing database-based business applications. There are other tools > that compete in a similar market, including Visual Age, Forte, and many > others. As far as I have heard Visual Age is a resource hog and therefore next to useless. Forte's pricetag of something like US$ 70.000 disqualifies it for most purposes in my book. > Just because it runs on a PC does not mean it's intended for > the mass market. It's not the sort of tool that you want to give away > to millions of people, because they would not know what to do with it. > It is intended for professional programmers who know or are willing to > learn object-oriented programming. 4GL was not a mass-market tool either, > but it was very successful. I seem to have heard this line of argument before: Have you given much thought to why Digital has had so many problems. They made VAX machines for the professional engineering and bussiness markets. It was not a simple machine for millions of customers because they would not know what to do with it. It was intended for the professional computer people who know or are willing to learn advanced operating systems and programming tools. The VAX was not a mass market machine, but it was very successfull. (IBM and the mainframe/system 36 and now probably the AS400 also comes to mind as well as many mini computer manufacturers.) Visual Basic programmers, Delphi programmers, PowerBuilder programmers (at least many of them) are professionals, making professional applications. They are willing and able to learn. These tools do not have the functionallity of New Era when it comes to deploying large client/server applications. They are however on a growth path. The Japanese car industry all but destroyed Detroit by starting out in the american market with small, cheap and often inferior cars. They grew and became market leaders. Unix destroyed the proprietary mini computer from a start as an inferior product. It is atacking the mainframe. The PC is making it hard for workstation vendors from a start as a clearly inferior product. The mass market is winning. It is winning on a grand scale with professional users. Why do you look down upon them? What on earth is wrong with New Era beeing a mass market product. The millions of people *do* know what to do with it. They are professionals who are not only willing, but to a large extent eager, to learn object oriented programming. They also need and want tools for full blown client server applications. I know a lot of these people, and this kind of attitude doesn't make it any easier to talk about New Era to them. As to 4GL: The first time i bought it it was affordable enough I could do it on my private income (not high at the time). That has payed of handsomely later, for mee as well as for Informix. If you make New Era affordable and aim it at the mass market you have every opportunity to become successfull. If not you may get run over. When application partioning (possibly the most important reason why New Era is so interesting) becomes available my guess is you will have a low priced PC version available for client applications only, and a higher priced enterprice/professional/whatever version with partitioning. You should talk about these issues now however. They are important to people now in their selection process for new tools. > > >> The key to frontend development tools > >> is having many - many programmers coding with the product and > >> creating more add-in tools. > > Any C++ class library is an "add in" tool for NewEra. We already > use a number of class libraries, including one for Lotus Notes and > the graphics class library from Hyperscript. Yes, but there aren't many arround. Hundreds, or even thousands, of add in's are needed. (OCX's is probably an answer for MS Windows developers.) > > >Informix should also include support for VBX's as just about any other > >GUI development company is providing. > > This will be supported by the end of the year. OCX's only I believe, which is ok. But I, and I think many others, would appreciate further information on this support. Will it be possible to drop OCX's onto a form as you do with VBX's in VB now? Will *all* properties and events of all types of OCX's be fully supported? (Ref. the current support of VBX's in Delphi and Powerbuilder which isn't very usefull due to lack of support for the latest "standard".) Any and all other information that is currently known about OCX's and how to use them in New Era. > >>>> A key issue last: There is *no* conflict at all between a mass marketed tool and a professional, high quality, client/server, application partioning enabled, object oriented tool. On the contrary. It is shuch tools that can realy win the mass market. It must of course also support high quality GUI development and it should be possible to develop small single workstation products. But where on earth is the conflict in this. Is support the problem if you sell *a version* (not the full product) at a low price to large number (>>100.000) of programmers? This is not a problem, let them pay (Microsoft does). Also if there are many programmers using the tool they will tend to help each other. What other conflict can there possibly be except that Informix hasn't quite grasped how to attack this market? (I hope, and believe, you will in due course.) Nils.Myklebust@ccmail.telemax.no NM-data, Dalsbergstien 7, N-0170 Oslo, Norway My opinions are those of my company Nils.Myklebust@ccmail.telemax.no NM-data, Dalsbergstien 7, 0170 Oslo, Norway My opinions are those of my company > tschaefe@gate.net (Tim Schaefer) writes: > In article <3rur8o$alo@homer.alpha.net>, tar@ems001.emsystem.com wrote: > > > >I wonder whether Informix will let NewEra die on the vine like they > >did with Wingz/Hyperscript. The key to frontend developm