IDEA Corp, Billerica, Massachusetts has added two extra options to its PreView range of database query and reporting software, launched six weeks ago. The company, which sells IDEAcomm emulation boards and client software and IDEA Concert communications processors for access to AS/400, mainframe and Unix hosts, has rebranded its long-standing emulation software as Midrange Client and launched PreView as it attempts to move away from its traditional base as an emulation company into its new identity as a middleware vendor. PreView comes ois bundled in with MidRange Client V3.1, prices of which start from UKP280, with the Plus and Gold options available for an extra charge. PreView Plus adds graphing, charting and run-time forms features to the core PreView query and reporting functions, while PreView Gold also enables tables to be created. IDEA has faced delays getting its PreView products out of the door; announced at the beginning of this year, the products were originally going to be developed jointly by IDEA and Dataease International Ltd, but it soon became clear, according to IDEA’s UK technical support manager Brian Warner, that interface problems were going to hold up the release of PreView, so in May IDEA opted instead to work with Gupta, whose SQL engine is at the heart of the new product. Warner said the difficulties in IDEA’s relationship with Dataease does not mean that PreView will not support the Dataease products at some future point; he said the swap was made so that the first PreView release could be made without too much delay. PreView includes an integrated SQL Router for AS/400 as well as support for Gupta Corp’s SQLBase Server, Oracle, Informix, Ingres and Sybase SQL Server, among others. At the front end, PreView relies on IBM Corp’s personal computer support. Warner said future version of the software will include IDEA’s own router, but for now the product relies on the IBM product. IDEA has also appointed a UK sales and marketing director David Oates, who was formerly northern regional manager for Ing C Olivetti & Co SpA company Decision Systems International. Oates will report in to Pierro Violo, general manager of IDEA Europe, which now accounts for some one third of the company’s total turnover.
