Panel “APL as an Entrepreneurial Tool”

Transcribed from the printed issue; not yet reviewed. Read it in the PDF of the issue, page 84

The session started with each panel member telling us about their experiences in using APL for their business.

John Estep - E/Step Software sells a decision support package for inventory management, and has been in existence for 8 years. APL shortened the development time and cost, so that the product can be sold for $25,000 less than the competition and still be a very full and competitive implementation. Generalised code means that it has been possible to restrict the provision of special features for individual customers. Very few customers ask what language has been used, which is mainly due to the fact that PC users do not expect to get source code, and are therefore not interested in the source language.

Axel Holzmuller - Dittrich & Partners is a software house with 50 employees of whom 20 are engaged in APL. Their business covers a wide range, including consultancy, APL support, software development, APL training, local area networks and PC distribution. Most software development is in APL, but they also use C, Clipper and fourth generation languages.

Donald Pittenger - The Demographics Laboratory provides population surveys for market researchers, and is a one man band. APL enables the numbers to be cranked out quickly, so increasing the number of projects Donald can deal with, and therefore the income he can generate. Almost all the APL is used for internal purposes. There is a problem in selling APL externally as run time licences from STSC are expensive.

Ameziane Mourad - Batisoft consists of about 70 people and sells a CAD package for architects. Most of the code is in APL, but C and Assembler are used where speed is critical. They are currently developing a GUI so that the product can be marketed in the USA, where customers are more discerning.

Nigel Harris - Saladin sells a decision support product for the oil industry and has about 40 employees. The package is written entirely in APL, and has dial-up links to public sources of oil industry data. Reuter File is used for distribution of data to 120 users in 20 countries. Venture capital was obtained to fund the start of the company. Five oil companies are design partners.

Georges Brigham - The APL Group sells a product to manage Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) of routine business documents such as invoices and purchase orders. Venture capital was raised in 1986 in order to speed up the launch of the company, and there are now 15 employees. The product contains 25,000 lines of APL code, and is continuously updated by sending out new versions.

The following questions were put from the floor:

Did the panel experience any problems with customers refusing to deal with a one man band? Donald Pittenger said that he had no problems. Georges Brigham hit that problem in the beginning but the company concerned bought the source code, and there have been no problems since. If John Estep gets a problem he quotes the big companies he deals with.

How does one get venture capital? Nigel Harris said that you have to put together a business case and sell it to prospective investors. In their experience it takes about 6 months’ full-time work for 2 people.

Is there a problem maintaining up to date code? Georges Brigham said that it was a tough problem which they solve by sending out code updates. Nigel Harris said they developed their own version control procedure.

What about run time licences? Donald Pittenger finds this a problem as APL*PLUS PC will only sell run time licences at $100 each, and there is no VGA for APL2/PC where run times are free. (James Wheeler of STSC said there would be an announcement about run time pricing at their product forum, at which it transpired that a one-time payment could be made.)

Does low cost make a product look cheap? Donald Pittenger said that budgets were often important and that companies looked for cheaper solutions. Adam Osborne said that the linking of low cost to low quality was a myth.