Software's Future Lies in Cooperative-Processing Systems This ts the sec- ond in a sertes of articles on key industry trends af fecting computer hard- MARTIN idly, posing chal- lenges for many organizations. Some of the trends are the growth of end-user computing; the transi- tion to graphical user interfaces; the in- troduction of powerful development tools, such as integrated computer-aided software engineering (I-CASE) tools; and the growing commitment to integrated computing environments, such as IBM s Systems Application Architecture (SAA) and Digital Eguipment Corp.s Network Application Support (NAS). These architectures and tools will in- creasingly be used to build enterprise- wide cooperative-processing systems that distribute data and processes across multiple hardware platforms (see chart). At the same time, the wide- spread adoption of software standards will provide consistent operation of graphical user interfaces, programming interfaces, communication interfaces and repository standards. Software Strategies By the end of the 1980s, many large organizations had adopted a strategy for software use within the firm. Off-the- shelf PC applications were commonly used by office workers and other end users, guery languages and decision-sup- port systems were used by business ana- lysts, fourth-generation languages were used for the creation of departmental applications and some corporate sys- tems, and COBOL was still pervasive as the de facto language of information J Y OL. will crumble in the 19905. While end users will continue to re- guire the functionality of off-the-shelf products, they will demand that the functionality of several products be inte- grated and user interfaces be standard- ized. Much of this integration will be achieved through the use of multitask- ing operating systems such as OS/2 and zen meji interfaces such as Win- S ».U and Presentation Manager. - While both Windows 3.0 and Presenta- tion Manager offer many of the same in- terlace and multitasking features, the underlying operating systems difer radi The Windows 3.0 interface opera! within the DOS-environment. As such, applications are limited to single tasks and restricted to a base memory of 640K bytes, A restricted form of multi- S ŠKE pe pre by switching banks ; nege extended memory to 0wever, this solution cannot be use as a platform for the PE VREapken ze are changing rap- 3. But the language infrastructure large, complex applications. Already, the basic kernel software of I[CASE tools can barely operate within the base memory of 640K bytes. If the high-speed loop of these products exceeds 640K bytes, the bank-switching functions pro- vided by DOS extenders and products such as Windows 3.0 will not provide a solution. Because of the fundamental limitations of DOS, high-end CASE tools are likely to migrate rapidly to OS/2. As the hardware computing resources increase in functionality, DOS and Win- dows 3.0 will not be able to fully exploit the capabilities of the hardware; OS/2 and Presentation Manager, which sup- port both multitasking and direct ad- Integrated Computing Environments Facilitate Seamless Interaction Among a Vartety Of Platforms — PO WEEKNAPPLICATION DEVELOPMENT — APPLIED INTELLIGENCE / alel systel reguest. In addition, the use of artificial intelligence and natural language tech- nigues will assist the user. These more powerful—yet easier to use—guery and decision-support systems will become the basis for commonplace executive in- formation systems. Fourth-generation languages will con- tinue to evolve in several significant ways. First, the languages will become more portable—moving to smaller com- puting platforms. They will also im- prove in power, performance and inte- grated capabilities. COBOL will continue to retain its place in the IS organization, but will take on a new image. Rather than users The Building Blocks of Enterprisewide Cooperative-Processing Systems o k Mei "ai 4 REALA VAME np m pil o me non a, an ov oni mik na