News from Sustaining Members

Transcribed from the printed issue; not yet reviewed. Read it in the PDF of the issue, page 13

Kestrel Consulting¶

Our activities in America continue to expand with more consultants taking the opportunity to spend a year or two enjoying the sunnier climate while taking advantage of the American lifestyle. We still have openings for people who have strong APL2 skills. Vacancies outside APL in America include SAP, SMALLTALK and VISUAL BASIC.

At home the much talked about "green shoots of recovery" seem to be producing many new and interesting openings for those seeking permanent career moves as well as those looking for contract assignments. These opportunities exist in SAP and VISUAL BASIC as well as APL.

Manugistics Inc.¶

As many of you will have heard by now, Manugistics Group Inc. made an Initial Public Offering (IPO) on August 13th and is now trading on the NASDAQ as a public company. This achievement is a tribute to all our customers who have helped us grow. By the time you read this, our annual APL*PLUS Users' Conference will be over. Right now, however, we are deep into preparations with only a couple of days left before the welcome reception. This year's conference features presentations and workshops from developers and users with an emphasis on building applications. As soon as this is behind us, we'll be able to turn our attention to the Society of Actuaries conference in New York.

While the marketing folk are busy conferencing, the developers are hard at work. We've just shipped Version 5 of our APL*PLUS II for UNIX product (in four flavours) and now everyone is getting their heads down to work on a true Windows version of APL*PLUS II.

This will be a pure Windows version with no DOS remnants and will run under Windows 3.1 and Windows NT. We're working on a real Windows-hosted session manager and debugger and we'll be putting both the APL*PLUS interpreter and the APLGUI toolkit (re-written in C) in DLLs. This new Windows version is not intended to replace or make obsolete the DOS version of APL*PLUS II — there are still many, many people who are in no hurry to move to Windows. What it will mean is that users will be able to choose whether to stay with DOS, move to Windows, or both. The good news is that the APLGUI applications you are writing now will be compatible with the new facilities — they'll just run a lot faster!

The best thing about APL*PLUS II for Windows is that all the work that is going into it serves a dual purpose. All the new features will also be used for our INCA project. This way, we will ensure that our APL*PLUS users get all the benefit of the new development as soon as possible. And this way, those of you who decide to move to INCA later on will find it easy to do so.

Dyadic Systems Ltd¶

Dyadic is pleased to report that, in terms of product interest, APL93 was its most successful conference yet. The company's stand was busy throughout the show and the attendance at Dyadic's Vendor Forum was greater than at any other in the 10 years since the product was launched. Perhaps though this had something to do with the refreshments that were provided!

The focus of the company's exhibit was the OSF/Motif implementation of Dyalog APL. This is functionally identical to Dyadic's increasingly popular Windows product and offers true portability of APL GUI applications across PC and UNIX-based systems. Dyadic was able to demonstrate several Dyalog APL/W workspaces, including Adrian Smith's PostScript graphics package running unchanged on an IBM RS/6000 under Motif. The Motif product should be available by the end of '93 and will coincide with a new release of Dyalog APL/W.

In addition to the OSF/Motif implementation, Dyadic announced new plans for Dyalog APL. Foremost among these is a commitment to provide compatibility with APL2. This will be implemented by having a new start-up option which will permit users to run Dyalog APL in "native mode" or "APL2-compatible" mode. Features such as "find", which present no conflict with existing Dyalog APL, will be available in both modes. APL2 compatibility will be introduced in stages, with the first of these included in the forthcoming Motif and Windows release at the end of the year.

Secondly, Dyadic announced binary compatibility between Dyalog APL workspaces and component files. This will permit Dyalog APL applications to be run in a heterogeneous network of PCs and UNIX systems and will greatly assist developers who wish to provide applications for both environments. Dyadic also promised to implement )COPY for GUI objects and intends at the same time to permit such objects to be stored on component files. Last, but not least, the company announced plans to provide a fully CUA-compliant APL session and editor. These enhancements will all be included in the planned year-end releases. The company also indicated that it would develop a facility to allow third-party and user-written GUI objects to be accessed from Dyalog APL/W and announced long-term plans to incorporate more object-oriented features into Dyalog APL.

Soliton Associates Limited¶

Soliton Associates head-office relocated in July to new office space in the Toronto city centre:

Soliton Associates Limited
44 Victoria Street, Suite 2100
Toronto, Ontario
Canada M5C 1Y2 — Tel: +1 416 364 9355; Fax: +1 416 364 6159

Soliton's mainframe development facility is now operated by a facility management company at a service centre in the Toronto area. Soliton's SHARP APL for MVS customer-base continues to enjoy worldwide network access to Soliton's Electronic Mail System as part of Soliton's 24-hour 365-day Technical Support Service.

Development of SHARP APL for MVS Version 21 is complete, and preparation for general distribution is in progress. The emphasis of Version 21 is on enhanced performance, operability and connectivity.

Version 1.5 of Soliton's MVSLink connectivity product is announced. MVSLink provides SHARP APL for MVS and SHARP APL for UNIX with access to data in the IBM MVS environment. It includes a high-capacity interface to IBM's DB2 relational database product.

A powerful new Intrinsic Function Facility is announced for SHARP APL for UNIX Version 4.03, allowing user-supplied interfaces to and from non-APL software. Standard intrinsic functions available with Version 4.03 include a TCP/IP Socket Interface.

The SHARE Europe '93 IBM User Conference will take place in October 1993 in The Hague, The Netherlands. The conference theme is "Client-Server, the Promise and the Reality", and on Tuesday 26 October there are presentations by Soliton Associates and other APL supplies.

The APL93 International APL Conference in Toronto in August was a great success, and many new contacts were made. A strong Soliton is planned for APL94 in Antwerp, Belgium, in September 1994.

Contact Laurie Howard, Soliton Associates Limited, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Tel +31 20 570 8733, Fax +31 20 570 8758, for information about Soliton products and services in Europe.