2013 MultiValue Industry End-of-Year Recap

Entrinsik

Q: What new features or services did Entrinsik introduce in 2013?

In 2013 Entrinsik released Informer version 4.4. This newest version includes a new set of visualizations for Informer Dashboards as well as a host of new features including the ability to share reports and Meta tables among organizations using similar databases. We continue to invest heavily in research and development in order to respond to the dynamic reporting and data analysis needs of the market.

Entrinsik launched Enrole 1.0 in November 2013. This next generation evolutionary software for organizations that produce seminars, training sessions, and continuing education is completely redesigned utilizing the latest web-based technology, built ultimately for ease of use.

Q: What was the greatest or most exciting thing that happened to your company or product in 2013?

Entrinsik hosted another successful Informer User Conference (ICON) this year in Myrtle Beach, SC. Our team welcomed keynote speaker Mark Pick of Pick Cloud, Inc. and special presenter Bill Harrison of Epicom. The conference was well attended by Informer customers and Partners and included breakout sessions with members of the Informer product development team, panel discussions on best practices and methodologies, and customer-led use cases demonstrating how Informer is successfully being deployed by customers. Read this recap of ICON on our blog at http://www.entrinsik.com/blog/2013/10/reflections-from-icon-2013/.

Towards the end of June, Entrinsik moved into expanded new office space in Raleigh, NC. Our company has been expanding steadily and the need for more space had been apparent for some time. Along with additional office spaces for current employees and plenty of room for growth, the product development team was outfitted with a communal open-area workspace more suited for high level collaboration.

Q: What would you like Spectrum readers to watch for in 2014? The Entrinsik product development team will be heads down working hard on two key development efforts:

1. Informer 5.0 which will be a significant upgrade to the user interface and overall functionality of Informer.
2. Expansion of the new Enrole software. Emphasis for the complete redesign has been placed on ease of use, integration with third party software, and web-based portals including a dynamic shopping cart, instructor and client portals, and a barcode scanner check-in kiosk.

Kore Technologies

Q: What new features or services did Kore Technologies introduce in 2013?

Kourier Integrator Release 4 was introduced, providing many new features and enhancements:

1. Increased Performance — boosted overall performance by as much as 20% — 30%.
2. Multi-Source Capability — Seamlessly integrate and consolidate information from external data sources (e.g., MySQL, Oracle, SQL Server, Access, and text files.) into a SQL data warehouse.
3. Improved RESTful Web Services — A simpler and more powerful user interface for building RESTful Web Services, includes support for Dynamic Named Parameters with integrated testing and URL generation.
4. Microsoft SQL Server 2012 — Native support for Microsoft SQL Server 2012 and Integration Services (SSIS) provides increased performance.
5. For our KommerceServer eCommerce Suite, we introduced a new lower cost of entry program that allows companies to reduce their startup costs for a fully integrated eCommerce webStoreFront and webPortal solution.

KommerceServer saw several key enhancements as well:

1. Dealer Locator System — integrated with Google Maps to find and provide directions to the nearest dealer for specific products.
2. User-selectable product catalog views — configurable by product class allow the user to determine which layout is most appropriate for their products.
3. New RMA module — provides entry, processing, notification and credit card payment for RMAs.

Q: What was the greatest or most exciting thing that happened to your company or product in 2013?

Kore Technologies is very excited about our relocation to new corporate offices, which are bigger and better. We are now located in the heart of San Diego's "Golden Triangle" technology district. The new facilities provide nicer amenities with room to grow while giving us a very professional environment. All of these changes have created an atmosphere that enhances our team collaboration, enabling us to focus on developing new and improved products while providing a higher level of service to our growing list of clients.

Also, Kore Technologies is honored to have been selected for inclusion in the list of the Top 100 most important companies in data today. This list salutes this year's top companies in data and enterprise information management tackling Big Data. Kore Technologies has a long track record of helping companies build enterprise data warehouses and business intelligence systems from their UniData / UniVerse (U2) databases and other data sources using Kourier Integrator and SQL Accelerator.

Q: What would you like Spectrum readers to watch for in 2014?

Spectrum readers can look for Kore to continue improving our Kourier Integrator and KommerceServer product suites.

For Kourier Integrator, look for enhancements that add functionality and ease-of-use features that improve the product's overall Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) capabilities for integrating various ERP applications to popular third-party products (e.g., CRM, Sales Force automation, scheduling systems, etc.). On the Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) side, look for Kourier Integrator to continue extending its architecture to support additional data sources, while continuing to improve the product's ease of use and performance.

For KommercerServer, watch for enhancements that provide additional support for distribution companies with Business-to-Business (B2B) features that supplement ERP back office capabilities online (e.g., quotes, bids, RMAs). As more and more companies look to extend beyond B2B and into more Business-to-Consumer (B2C) online sales, KommerceServer will be there with features sought by today's modern buyer. Look for features that make the online buying experience faster and easier while enhancing the integration to the back office ERP systems.

Ladybridge Systems Ltd.

Q: What new features or services did Ladybridge Systems Ltd. introduce in 2013?

Our OpenQM database continues to grow both in terms of product functionality and its user base. We believe that it remains the MultiValue product with the lowest total cost of ownership and it has proved to be highly stable and scalable up to large user populations.

Development effort this year has mostly been directed to a large number of small enhancements requested by our users rather than introduction of major new features. A few of the more noteworthy of these are:

• IPV6 networking protocol availability. This includes direct network connection to QM, incoming and outgoing socket connections from application software, QMClient connections and internal processes such as data replication and QMNet. Provision of IPV6 ensures that QM is ready for the anticipated move to this technology over the next few years.
• Addition of an External Call Interface to allow QM applications to call external library functions in a secure manner that preserves the integrity of the managed code environment in which applications run. These might be standard library functions or special functions written by the application developer that need capabilities not available in QMBasic.
• Extension of the Virtual File System to provide per-user security features similar to those adopted by the QMNet network file access subsystem. Other extensions to the VFS make it easier for application developers to open connections to external data stores, improving the ability for QM to be part of a mixed product server network.
• Introduction of exception handling similar in concept to that found in many other programming languages. Combined with several enhancements to QM's object orientated programming capabilities, this makes the environment more familiar to developers coming from other systems and allows new applications to adopt a more contemporary style.
• Exposure of the internal sorting system for use within applications, thus often eliminating the need for use of executed select operations that can degrade application performance.
• Several connectivity enhancements including significant extensions to the QMClient Java API and the ability to use QMClient on iOS or Android devices to allow native applications to access data on a QM server.

Q: What would you like Spectrum readers to watch for in 2014?

Looking forward to 2014, we expect key developments to include several web related components including an integrated web server for incoming web services applications, an equivalent outgoing web services connector with advanced support for multi-dimensional data objects, and a number of new connectivity enhancements.

We are also expecting to see QM launched in a Software as a Service role early in 2014 or maybe even late in 2013. This exciting venture has the prospect of opening up a major new market in which new or established applications can be provided in a secure, low cost and flexible manner.

Precision Solutions

Q: What new features or services did Precision Solutions introduce in 2013?

In 2013 we rolled out version 7 of our Red Leaf web portal for Epicor Prelude. This release made some big leaps in functionality for the product, with some big enhancements for both the desktop and mobile platforms.

Q: What was the greatest or most exciting thing that happened to your company or product in 2013?

In addition to nearly doubling our office space, we launched a new training center for Red Leaf that we hope to leverage a great deal next year. Red Leaf continues to be a big hit, and we're constantly growing the platform and finding new ways to expand the technology.

Q: What would you like Spectrum readers to watch for in 2014?

More mobile! Our customers have been dreaming up all sorts of cool things they want to do with the mobile platform, and we'll be exploring a number of those ideas in the coming year, like warehouse operations using phones, tablets, and other pervasive devices.

Revelation Software

Q: What new features or services did Revelation Software introduce in 2013?

In June of this year we released OpenInsight Development Suite 9.4 which included dramatic improvements to our OEngineServer as well as OpenInsight for Web (O4W) version 1.5.

The Revelation Software OEngineServer is a java application designed to listen for requests from various client applications; start up, manage, and terminate the database engines for OpenInsight (OEngines); and route requests and responses from the clients to the OEngines. OI 9.4 has increased OEngineServer stability and has also added support for UTF8 mode.

OpenInsight for Web (O4W) is a web development toolkit designed for multivalue developers. This toolkit can be utilized on a variety of databases including OpenInsight, Universe, Unidata, D3, mvBase, QM, SQL, MySQL.

Q:What was the greatest or most exciting thing that happened to your company or product in 2013?

In April 2013 Revelation Software hosted our Users' Conference in Nashville, Tennessee. Attendees from around the globe congregated to share ideas and knowledge about our software. Overall, it was a very enjoyable, easy going, fun learning experience.

In September we launched our new web site written using Joomla and our O4W software.

Q: What would you like Spectrum readers to watch for in 2014?

Development continues on OpenInsight version 10.0 which will include a 32-bit and 64-bit implementation of the product. OI 10.0 will include the following new components: an embedded web server, a WYSIWYG O4W Form Designer, a browser-based Management Console, improvements to indexing and a new desktop Form Designer. We are planning to release OI 10.0 in Q4 2014.

SJ+ Systems Associates

Q: What new features or services did SJ+ Systems Associates introduce in 2013?

SJ+ Systems Associates is excited to have spent some of 2013 working with Design Bais — the very smart people and the very smart product.

PRC is an IT Governance/Source control/Life cycle management solution that has been available on MultiValue databases for many years. Now PRC can be used to manage Design Bais development itself and this also opens up many other development environments for PRC use, as well.Of course,PRC is still a powerful solution for those who are using Rocket U2 tools such as SB+, SB/XA and BDT, plus a number of 3rd party editing tools.

PRC is a complete life-cycle management tool. This means that it will automatically track changes made to software and data files (as designated), keeping backups of all types that are easily viewed and managed. Rollout (deployment) and rollback to test and live environments is a simple one-button activity. PRC also provides test plan management — allowing test steps to be iterated and noted, saved, and reused. PRC also has its own request/issue management or can be readily integrated with other outside tools for help desk/problem reporting. PRC will support compliance with the security initiative and provide the necessary IT controls for any governance strategy including those imposed by regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley and PCI DSS.

Q: What would you like Spectrum readers to watch for in 2014?

The coming year will see PRC continue to mature and expand as well as accommodate any new regulatory requirements that come along.

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Nov/Dec 2013