JANE 25, 1990 PG WEEKNAPPLIGATION DEVELOPMENT bie ra A APPLJEDINTELUGENCE Changing Technology Calls for New Information Strategies will focus increasingly on the identifica- — ward the applications-development envi- Therefore, an information strategy Many organiza: tion and implementation of standards— ronment of the 19905? must identify the architectures, method: tions are realign- | the use of standards for graphical user A major criterion for an information ologies and tools that can be tapped to ing their corpo- interfaces, database interfaces, commu- strategy is to meet the critical success fac. meetan organization's goals. This re- rate information nication protocols, design information tors of an organization. Is no longer good guires an overall strategic game plan strategjes in re- and operating environments. — enough to use informatioti systems Simply that may introduce'the company to en" sponse to major Standards are already taking root in to develop payroll systems in the back of- tirely new hardware and software changes erupti the CASE arena, as a result of IBMsan- fice. The corporate information-systems technigues. : bot ma Other options that can help an organi- in both hardware o k and software zation reach its goals are methodologies technology. As' based on rapid prototyping, such as RAD; close involvement of end users; shown in the fig- ure, the comput- joint application-design workshops; small teams of experienced analysts; ing landscape is MRATIN being trans: and the use of I-CASE tools that are ca- formed by a pable of generating 100 percent of an application's code on the desktop. A principal objective of migrating ap- plications development to the desktop is to create code that can be exported or transported to the target environment. | Within IBM's Systems Application Ar- chitecture, that target environment might be a PS/2, an AS/400 minicom- puter or a System 370 mainframe. Implementation of this type of strate- gic vision can result in major improve- ments to productivity and at the same time meet the critical success factors of an organization. Next week, I will discuss the selection of applications-development tools that . meet the reguirements imposed by ad- number of fac- tors, including the growing power of desktop computers, the consolidation of PCs into LANS, the use of file servers to facilitate data access, and the distribu- tion of processing power and data throughout networks of diverse systems. In response, many organizations are < shifting their focus to integrated com- -. puting environments, intercorporate net- works, multilayered hardware architec- tures and the development of coopera- tive-processing applications. k Increasingly, large mainframe applica- : tions are being broken up into program modules that can run across a network of computers. User-interface functions - and many processing operations are be- development methodologies and integrated computing arelitectures. 8 | ing moved to the desktop, leaving the | mainframe to control computer net- xE - z works and deliver access to large corpo- The concepts embodied, in this article rate databases. are described in the High-Productivity Applications development is also un- ohm Avakian Technology volume in The James Mar- dergoing fundamental changes. Within a S j oo tin Report Series. For more informa- | few years, program design will be per: nouncement of AD/Cycle, a common re department has to identify ways in which | tion on this volume, call (617) 639- | formed almost exclusively on the desk- pository standard that governs the stor- information can be leveraged to gain a "1958. For information on seminars, top. Developers will use integrated com- | age of CASE design information. This strategic advantage —for example, how contact (in the United States and Can- puter-aided software engineering 4 standard will make it possible for users | more productive development methodolo- | ada) Technology Transfer Institute, CASE) tools to generate applications - to select the optimal CASE tools from gies such as rapid applications develop 741 10th St., Santa Monica, Calif. automatically, rather than rely on ineffi- multiple vendors for each phase of the ment (RAD) can be used to develop appli- | 90402 (. 218) 9394-8305. In Europe, con: cations faster and at a much lower cost, :tact Savani, 2 New St., Carnforth, cient hand-coding technigues with lan- development process. ; f c t V guages such as COBOL. So what kind.of strategic vision or how information technology can be Lancs., LA5 9BX United Kingdom should we be adopting as we move to-. . used to do more with less. (0524) 734 505. Corporate information strategies also The COBOL Programmer Workstation and Its Impact on Productivity The Micro Focus Developers Seminar Schedule The Programmer Workstation environment uses personal computers as intelligent, distributed workstations for developing, testing and maintaining host-based COBOL applications: At these Developers Seminars you will: 1 See the positive impact the programmer workstation can have on programmer productivity 18 See an in depih technical demonstration of the Micro Focus COBOL/2 Workbench facilities 18 Watch CICS and IMS code offloaded from the host, running under the integrated Workbench testing environment rs. Evaluate the workstation's potential in your organization 13" Lear about latest product developments and future trends MICRO FOCUS: There is no charge for attending a Micro Focus Developers Seminar. For more information about the Developers Seminar A Better Way of Programming" or about Micro Focus products call 415-856-416L.