Software houses concentrating on products for proprietary architectures are starting to become a rarity – and the latest to embark on a strategy aimed at the multi-vendor, open systems market is Cognos Inc of Ottawa, Ontario. The Canadian, which claims to be the largest fourth generation software company in the world, with projected revenues this year of $82m – $100m in the devalued Canadian dollar – made its fortune by selling its PowerHouse generator on Hewlett-Packard hardware, only later re writing the software in C for DEC VAX/VMS and Data General hardware. Last year, the company released MS-DOS and OS/2 versions of the language, but says it is primarily after business from the mid-range systems market where Cobol is popular. Facing reduced growth rates due to Hewlett-Packard’s emphasis on HP/UX on Precision Architecture machines over the HP3000 Series, Cognos says it has spent $24m on technology licensing agreements and research and development over the last two years. First results are now being revealed, and include the new StarBase distributed relational database, which it has integrated with PowerHouse. StarBase, with the related StarNet network communications software, has been licensed from Interbase Software Corp, a Tyngsborough, Massachusetts company part-owned by Ashton-Tate Corp, and sells its InterBase product line on Apollo Computer, Sun Microsystems and DEC Ultrix hardware. The first version from Cognos will run under VMS, and Cognos claims it is a second generation relational database, using a client-server architecture suitable for transaction processing. Through StarNet, customers will be able to implement distributed database systems over DECNet or TCP/IP, allowing data integrity across multiple databases on the network by using two-phase commit. StarNet can be used independently of StarBase, or in combination with RMS or Rdb/VMS, and Cognos plans support for third party database products such as Oracle early next year, which it will access through an SQL interface. Available from January 5, a development licence ranges from UKP8,775 for a MicroVAX II installation to UKP48,425 for a VAX 8800. Cognos says that Unix versions of its software will be on beta test from early next year, and that eight Unix platforms, including HP/UX, are currently being considered. European vice president Jim Cluchey also revealed that the Canadian company would be making a move into the IBM systems marketplace for the first time, now that the AS/400 has clarified IBM’s mid-range policy.
