‘Huron rules; Cobol is dead’. Apart from being a pun on the rules-based nature of the Huron’s language, this is a message Amdahl Corp wishes software developers to heed. Not that it is keen to release all the technical details explaining exactly how the system functions. Huron was launched 18 months ago for MVS environments (CI No 1,644), with access to DB2, IDMS, IMS, VSAM and Model 204 databases. Described by Amdahl as a high-level applications environment it combines its own programming language, relational database, workbench tools – themselves written in Huron, and object-based MetaStor facility that integrates data and Huron rules. Versions for Amdahl’s Unix System V-based UTS system, and Intel Corp 80486 workstations running Santa Cruz Operation Inc’s Open Desktop followed this July (CI No 1,991).
RS/6000 version
A further variation for the IBM Corp RS/6000 will be ready by the second quarter of next year, and others for Sun Microsystems Inc Sparc workstations and OS/2 should arrive by the end of 1993. Future enhancements planned for next year are an SQL access capability and graphical user interface support for Huron applications – the company is anxious that the system appears identical to users wherever is implemented. Take-up has been modest so far. A total of 22 customers have signed up, mostly in the UK and US – although given the size of the latter, a base of nine is, well, disappointing. Contracts from French shipbuilder Chantiers and Belgian retailer Dolmen represent the only other inroads Huron has made in Europe. Another 17 trials are underway worldwide. Eight of them are in the US, and include AT&T Co Amdahl’s biggest single customer – and the US Postal Service; the remainder in Europe include the UK’s Norwich Union and British Telecommunications Plc and Peugeot SA in France. The indications, according to Steve Green, Huron marketing manager for Europe, are that all 17 will eventually sign. Amdahl prefers to measure its success in terms of quality rather than quantity. Users are naturally rather suspicious of software produced by hardware vendors and Amdahl has deliberately trodden carefully in order to ensure it can maintain adequate service levels for its customers. For example, it is restricting sales of its workstation version to those that already run its mainframe version. This decision is dictated entirely by marketing rather than technical considerations since, Amdahl says, Huron applications developed on workstations can run on mainframes and vice versa. Marketing in the near future will continue to be considered rather than aggressive. The company is keen to stress its customer-oriented approach to application development, which it claims has helped it to complete one UK project in less than half the anticipated time.
By Lynn Stratton
Rather than sweating over all possible considerations at the early analysis and design stage of development, Amdahl’s preferred method is to work on a basic prototype for three to four weeks and then, in conjunction with the user, test-drive the application, progressively building in refinements. Endorsements have been received from two major UK customers, The Inland Revenue and Coca-Cola & Schweppes Beverages, where David Jephson, the soft drinks company’s director of personnel, organisation and systems explained at a conference in Brussels this week that in performance tests, Huron produced an average two-to-one improvement over his company’s native Telon and DB2-based transaction processing system with differences of seven-to-one noted in some instances. Portability between different machines was considered another major advantage of Huron, which has now been adopted for all new in-house applications developments. The Inland Revenue, Amdahl’s first UK test site, conducted a four-stage evaluation of Huron during 1990-1991. General ease of use and productivity in simple inventory and accounting systems were initially assessed, followed by the development of pilot financial reconciliation, personnel record and management report-writing systems. The finding
s were that Huron was user-friendly, fast and capable of producing a 30% to 40% improvement over conventional proprietary or fourth generation languages. Again, its ability to co-exist with disparate environments was praised although the need for full SQL capability was noted.
No AS/400 plans
There are no plans to do a version of the system for the AS/400 because of lack of demand, Amdahl says – curious given the vast numbers of AS/400 users out there but understandable since Amdahl is unlikely ever to have met more than a handful of them. Opportunities for third party software channels do seem more hopeful, although cautious progress remains paramount. Huron presently contributes only a fraction – ‘a single digit figure’ – to Amdahl’s total revenue but with the perceived decline in the mainframe market, is expected to become increasingly significant, making it all the more important to avoid bad reports at this early stage. And as Ted Woolger of the Information Technology Division at the Inland Revenue commented in his evalutation: Huron is still relatively new and untried. In the absence of an established user base, there is no pool of experience available and the relative strengths and weaknesses of the product are not yet fully known. Overcoming this resistence, perhaps, will be the biggest battle for Amdahl.
