Just as IBM was announcing the components that will eventually make up its total repository offering, Hoskyns Group Plc elbowed in to remind users that its system development tools remain a safe bet in the intervening period. The pretext for the publicity is that the New York company Applied Business Technology Corp, developer of the Project Manager Workbench, has acquired ownership and all rights to the Bridge project evaluation, planning and estimating tool from Princeton, New Jersey-based Princeton Management Sciences Inc. Since, however, Hoskyns is already the sole distributor within Europe and Australasia of both the Workbench and Bridge this is of fairly minor consequence. The only real effect of the acquisition in terms of Hoskyns’ distribution of both products is that over the next year the interface between the two will be further refined to create closer compatibility. Yet such development will be redundant come the eventual reckoning when the IBM repository actually does arrive. In the meantime Hoskyns is determined to make hay with the software engineering tools that currently make up its CASE package: Bridge, Project Manager Workbench, the DesignAid analyst’s workbench and the Prism family of management methodologies. Of these David Palmer, Bridge product manager, is keen to stress the natural fit between Bridge and Project Manager Workbench, since Bridge helps in the evaluation stage, planning and estimating of project management, while the Workbench’s expertise lies with the scheduling and control of resources. Indeed, 85% of the project managers in Europe that have bought the Bridge systems were already using the Workbench. Until more tightly integrated versions of both products are available, Hoskyns will continue to sell version 2.0 of the Bridge system at UKP1,250 through direct sales in the UK and via distributors elsewhere. Hoskyns will, however, maintain Bridge’s links with other project management systems such as Computer Associates’ SuperProject as well as retaining its commitment to methodologies other than Prism where they are required. Regarding its new controlling shareholder GEC Siemens Plc, Palmer said Hoskyns will retain its independence and will not be merged with software divisions within either GEC or Siemens. It does, however, expect growing orders generated within the group by these divisions.
