Earlier this week (CI No 944), Oracle Corp made what it claims is its most significant announcement to date, with the worldwide launch of its UK-designed computer aided systems engineering toolset. Research and development for the project, to which Oracle certainly appears fanatically committed, started at Oracle’s Chertsey base in 1977, and has so far cost the company UKP5m – a figure which is expected to reach epic UKP250m proportions by the end of 1993. Oracle defines the end objective of computer aided systems engineering tools as automating the activities of designers and analysts, and claims that the tools will avert the current software crisis by speeding up the in situ design of software, and ensuring that it is right first time. The key to Oracle’s computer aided engineering systems environment is the Case Designer interface, effectively a multi-tasking graphics workbench which enables users to develop models of applications by using mouse-selected standard windowing software, icons and pull-down menus. More significant is Oracle’s claim that Case Designer features a unique overlapping application subsystem, which enables two designers across a network to work on the diagram in simultaneous real-time. The product currently runs on Sun Microsystems workstations, with availability plans for the DEC VAX and Hewlett-Packard machines well under way. The Case Designer also provides access to the Case Dictionary, a data dictionary based on Oracle’s existing SQL Design Dictionary and designed to run on a range of hardware. The dictionary stores diagrams developed during the design and analysis stages of a project, together with a company-constructed glossary of system terms, to provide an on-line quality and completeness checking facility. Oracle’s final offering is Case Method, a theoretical rulebook based on the company’s own systems develop-ment methodology, which provides guidelines, tasks and techniques to aid users in the building of systems, and is delivered via a range of manuals and training courses. Licence fees for the Case Designer and the Case Dictionary range from UKP6,000 to UKP14,000 per user, while a series of Case Method courses costs between UKP2,000 and UKP3,000. All the products are available immediately.
