2017 MultiValue Industry End-of-Year Recap

R ecap is our annual tradition. We look back at the end of each year and see how the landscape has changed. Normally, a tradition is about doing and seeing and saying the same things. But if the years have taught me anything, "the same things" are never what we find.

2017 has been a challenging year for many businesses. The global economy and nearly every local economy have faced rapid changes. From crypto-currencies to virtual companies, the very foundational definitions of what money and technology and work mean have shifted. We asked some of our friends in the MultiValue community to talk about what they see and how they are preparing for the coming year.

Entrinsik

What new features or services did Entrinsik introduce in 2017?

With its release in August 2017, Informer 5 has been re-imagined from the ground up, to dramatically enhance performance and leverage an extensible architecture that simplifies data discovery and analytics without sacrificing functionality. With Informer 5, organizations can quickly connect to their traditional or uncommon databases, spreadsheets, and unstructured data streams all without time-consuming warehousing or cubing. Users can access, blend, and cleanse data in a few easy steps; then utilize data discovery to explore, analyze, and visualize information relevant to them. Informer enables end users to easily manipulate and interact with data, collaborate with colleagues, and even create personalized home pages.

Informer's crisp, modern, user interface provides an easy-to-follow hierarchy and an immersive user experience that drastically cuts down on the learning curve associated with other BI (Business Intelligence) products. Watch the product tour *HERE* .

What was the greatest or most exciting thing that happened to your company or product in 2017?

In addition to receiving high ratings from Entrinsik customers on independent software review sites such as Capterra and TrustRadius , Entrinsik Informer received several top rankings in The BI Survey 17, the world's largest and most comprehensive survey of business intelligence end users. Within its peer groups, Entrinsik Informer is ranked number one for Embedded BI, Competitive Win Rate, Self Service, Sales Experience, Competitiveness, and Ease of Use. You can download a copy of the BI Survey 17 Entrinsik highlights document here: < entrinsik.com/whitepapers/barc-bi-survey-17 >.

What would you like Spectrum readers to watch for in 2018?

We are already gearing up for a phenomenal 2018. For over thirty years Entrinsik has invested consistently in research and development to ensure our Informer and Enrole platforms remain modern, robust, and easy to use. Our R&D teams have focused on simplifying every part of both software platforms so first-time users can begin leveraging all the features and functionality fully, with as little training as possible, to capture data, manage and explore data, build reports and dashboards for analysis, and share information quickly and easily. We are looking forward to penetrating new markets, and with over fifteen hundred customers and growing fast, we will continue enhancing our software based on market needs to build on our already excellent reputation in the market.

Ladybridge Systems Ltd

What new features or services did Ladybridge Systems Ltd introduce in 2017?

This year has seen several new capabilities added to QM as we continue to respond to requests from our users. Among the more important enhancements, we added multi-tenanting for Windows systems to allow a single Windows server to host multiple isolated QM environments. This feature has been available on Linux for some time. We have also implemented additional performance-related counters in the Hot Spot Monitor and other performance monitoring features to help developers improve application efficiency. QM now supports selection of a specific device when directing output to a printer on the client system and we have modified building of indices to process multiple indices in parallel for improved performance. On Windows systems that support the Microsoft Virtual Terminal mode (e.g. Windows 10 with the Creators' Update), a new terminal type, MSVT, allows applications to make use of the enhanced capabilities of this device on QMConsole sessions. Also, several new functions have been added to the QMClient API.

What was the greatest or most exciting thing that happened to your company or product in 2017?

The relationship with Zumasys as our sales and marketing partner continues to improve QM's position in the MultiValue marketplace. In late 2017, Zumasys announced that Uniware has been appointed to sell QM in Australia. We see this as a very important strategic move that will help us penetrate this key market and further enhance the reputation of QM in the MultiValue world.

What would you like Spectrum readers to watch for in 2018?

As always, our development process is largely driven by requests from our users but there are some projects that we expect to be completed in 2018. These include enhancements to QM's data encryption and security subsystems, improvements to the migration tools for users moving applications to QM and some new development tools. Watch the OpenQM Google group for announcements of new releases.

ONgroup Intl

What new features or services did your company introduce in 2017?

This year we deployed our first horizontal scalability for MultiValue sites with our MVON# Cluster Server, in conjunction with Microsoft tools and architecture for high availability and horizontal scaling. We added both a GUI and a BUI (browser user interface) delivered as services for MVON# Netbuilder, for those coming from SB+ to .NET. We also enhanced our MV# Developer Studio, delivering version 2.0 for maintaining and compiling (transpiling all MV code to C#) for running in .NET. This tool has served as an IDE for those bringing SB+ applications to .NET, and this year we enhanced it so it is also used as a contemporary editor for any MultiValue site running their MV BASIC applications in .NET. We enhanced the MVON# Changeover Administrator to include GUI versions of tools previously only available at the TCL prompt, such as the development of read/write SQL Views of MV data. We developed the MVON# Profiler tool for seeing what is happening when your app is running. We are very close to announcing it, so more information will come in 2018.

What was the greatest or most exciting thing that happened to your company or product in 2017?

This is the year we installed the first U.S. companies using MVON# to run their applications on a Microsoft platform. We had some work to do behind the scenes to be able to deliver MVON# internationally, beyond Africa where it was developed. So, this is the first year that any U.S. companies have seen their MultiValue applications running directly in .NET with SQL Server as the DBMS. We are always delighted when people tell us how they can see the usefulness of their applications and value to their companies, even the value of their companies, increase with this approach. It has been a very exciting and pivotal year for us.

What would you like Spectrum readers to watch for in 2018?

Watch for MultiValue shops to be right there with the rest of the industry, running on the best industry platforms. MultiValue is then a framework or toolset, rather than an operating system, as it was long ago, or a DBMS, as it often is today. Look for MultiValue running inside standard run-time machines, such as .NET (using MVON#) or the JVM (used in some application-proprietary cases, such as Temenos with TAFJ). Now that mainstream DBMS tools are working with NoSQL data as well as SQL data, using DBMS products such as SQL Server or Oracle for MultiValue application aligns well with industry directions. Look for sites to no longer have to choose between SQL and NoSQL approaches. Data can be projected handily for both. Sites will now be adding MultiValue tools to the Microsoft platform rather than maintaining proprietary MultiValue platforms. Watch for this sea change for MultiValue.

Rocket Software

What new features or services did your company introduce in 2017?

2017 was an important year for Rocket Software MultiValue products. We augmented the functionality of our award-winning UniData MultiValue Database, part of the MultiValue Application Platform, with the addition of Python programming support and audit logging capabilities. These enhancements expand the potential user base for UniData and improve the ability to recruit new development talent, and allow users to easily establish configurable histories of interactions, events, and activities. The inclusion of Python support opens up MultiValue databases to architects and programmers who use one of the world's most popular languages, helping organizations that rely on MultiValue to expand their hiring base. In addition, because companies must conform to audits in multiple formats and from various organizations, audit logging lets UniData users create audit histories to help meet standards such as HIPAA, PCI-DSS, and the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). UniData, like UniVerse 11.3.1, now makes spot audits easy with more granular audit data and access to chronologically generated data, and the new software includes support for sequential file logs, creating improved performance without system interruptions.

What was the greatest or most exciting thing that happened to your company or product in 2017?

2017 was a year where the Rocket team worked closely with our customers to help them address their business needs in cloud deployment, compliance and modernization. We're proud to have won a number of awards for our solutions in 2017, including the Growth Partner of the Year award from Ellucian.

Ellucian, the leading provider of software and services built to power higher education, selected Rocket in recognition of the company's outstanding technical support for Ellucian's cloud-based solutions and for its role in helping the company transition to its current SaaS license model.

Ellucian has been a long-time user of the Rocket MultiValue (MV) Application Platform, which combines an embedded database and development platform to offer the best of traditional database management with the flexibility, innovation, and performance today's applications require. The MV integrated architecture dramatically simplifies deployment and maintenance, while the fluid and natural data model reduces the need for costly DBAs or system administrators. With its low overall total cost of ownership, the MultiValue Application Platform is making it possible for millions of users around the world to solve their critical business problems.

What would you like Spectrum readers to watch for in 2018?

No technology company can rest on its laurels and expect to thrive. 2017 was a lifetime ago, which is why Rocket is continuously investing R&D resources into our MultiValue products to help organizations solve their most vexing business and technical problems. In 2018, UniVerse will feature a Recoverable File System (RFS). Based on a 2-phase architecture, RFS ensures full data integrity and automates fast restoration in the event of an unexpected outage, such as power failure. By maintaining a persistent change log (journal), RFS can always restore quickly to the last complete transaction without lengthy manual intervention for file repairs.

Last year's UniData release included Python support, which was so successful that we will be including it in the new version of our award-winning Rocket D3 MultiValue Application Platform. The 2018 release of D3 provides a great opportunity for Rocket mvBase customers to upgrade to all of the additional benefits D3 includes at no cost. We're also continuing our focus on cloud development to support our customers' ongoing need for elasticity, provisioning and data management.

Of course, there will be many other improvements and enhancements to the Rocket MultiValue Application Platforms, and they all have one thing in common: the new features put our customers and partners first.

SJ+ Systems Associates

What new features or services did SJ+ Systems Associates introduce in 2017?

PRC has been the premier software lifecycle management solution in MultiValue companies for twenty-five years. In recent years, not only do more companies face IT audit requirements, but the maturity of our market has programmers and management alike moving to take advantage of improved processes and controls. Stir-in the challenges that come with remote and offshore teams, agile methodologies and it's easy to see why the demand for PRC has increased along with the rigor of what is demanded of it. The emergence of more tools and platforms has kept us hopping, too. Every year we focus on the compliance requirements that impact IT, trending methodologies, and new platforms. This year we continued work with Design Bais and are also working with MVON#. Our goal is to make PRC available on any MultiValue platform.

What was the greatest or most exciting thing that happened to your company or product in 2017?

The most exciting story for us, and for lots of other folks in this space is the renewed excitement and commitment from companies toward their MultiValue solutions. Debate has raged about the future of our beloved environment. Somehow it has continued to endure. I believe we have turned the corner on 'endure' and into 'prevail' territory. That's great news for all of us.

What would you like Spectrum readers to watch for in 2018?

Momentum. The business world changes quickly. The thing that hasn't changed is this little engine of change, itself. The light-weight agility of MultiValue coupled with its flexibility to work with other tools and databases will give MultiValue — and those of us working with it — a much wider reach.

Zumasys, Inc.

What new features or services did Zumasys, Inc., introduce in 2017?

MV Connect: MVConnect is an exciting new tool that enables you to connect your MultiValue application to RESTful Web Services. MVConnect empowers you to create modern, browser-based user interfaces based on today's Web frameworks, such as Angular JS, and integrate with popular SaaS-based applications like Salesforce and NetSuite. MVConnect is available for jBASE, D3, Universe & Unidata.

jBASE 5.6.2: The latest release of jBASE, our powerful MultiValue database management system, now includes native encryption, granular audit logging, improved transaction journaling, and native RESTful WEB Services (MVConnect is bundled for free with jBASE).

Earlier this year, we graduated our first class of Pick MultiValue students from Ivy Tech Community College in Bloomington, Indiana. Students in Ivy Tech's Software Development certificate program can now simulate real-world programming scenarios using jBASE. With training and assistance from Zumasys and Cook Medical, Ivy Tech Community College developed a curriculum that challenged students with problem-solving projects to prepare them for careers in manufacturing management at companies such as Cook Medical.

What was the greatest or most exciting thing that happened to your company or product in 2017?

We are most excited about the release of MVConnect, which will revolutionize how businesses think about evolving and enhancing their MultiValue systems. Using MVConnect, you can now integrate your MultiValue database, which contains decades of business rules and historical data, with new web services. Despite the power and flexibility of MultiValue databases, many have dated interfaces. MVConnect changes that, bringing MultiVaule into the twenty-first century. Even better—MV Connect can be used with all major Pick databases and costs less than three thousand dollars.

What would you like Spectrum readers to watch for in 2018?

In 2018, we will release jBASE 5.7, which brings several major enhancements, including Dynamic Objects and Dynamic Files. jBASE sales reached record levels in 2017 and we are committed to delivering more features than any other MultiValue database platform while keeping prices 20% to 30% less. We will also be releasing AccuTerm 8, the latest version of our popular terminal emulation software. AccuTerm 8 will include exciting new features, such as AccuTerm ReZume, which provides session persistence and auto reconnect, eliminating the problem of lost sessions and hung ports. This is particularly useful for cloud customers and users working at remote branches which rely on slow or unpredictable internet connections. With ReZume, if you are disconnected from your Pick database, your session is automatically reconnected and you can pick up right where you left off. Other new features include tandem session replay, session recording, and enhanced encryption. AccuTerm 8 will also move to a cloud subscription licensing model, which will enable us to provide continuous updates and telephone support.

Featured:

Nov/Dec 2017