It was originally promised last quarter, but Ottawa, Canada-based Cognos Inc last week finally introduced early software development kits for its Axiant Developers’ Workbench client-server application development environment. However, a fully-deployable package will not be available until April next year, some four months late, according to the company. It has been working on adding VAX and HP 3000 support in it. This first phase of the Axiant roll-out, which the company has been talking about for a year or more now, uses a Windows front-end and includes the PowerHouse proprietary language, now simply referred to as a robust 4GL, Cognos’s Impromptu and PowerPlay reporting and analysis tools, and it uses a home-grown object technology. Users can migrate straight up to Axiant from the current PowerHouse release only. Axiant applications can be deployed on either personal computers or servers, or both – the fat and thin client approach. The Developers’ Workbench is $3,000 and is a complete environment, which will support Unix, MS-DOS and OpenVMS servers with Mac, Windows and character terminal front-ends. It will have links to most Unix and Open Database Connectivity databases. Axiant 1.1, will be followed by version 2.0, which will include support for OLE 2. Cognos has also added Oracle7 integration to its PowerHouse for Unix stand-alone high level application development environment. The software, already integrated with the likes of Sybase, InterBase, Allbase/SQL and Rdb databases, now also supports the native Oracle Call Interface, plus SQL*Net and Cognos.
