Systems Application Architecture is a puzzle in which all the pieces are never going to be in place. So says Earl Wheeler, IBM’s senior vice-president of programming systems and a man described as as the reigning SAA czar. According to Computer Systems News, more than three years after the introduction of SAA there’s precious little to show for all the hype and promise. That the extent of IBM’s account control will be largely determined by user uptake of of SAA is something many industry observers agree on. But until users know the time-frame for a fully de-veloped SAA, they can’t assess how cost effect-ive it will be. The problem is the glaring lack of application software. OfficeVision is still incomplete, and IBM has said it will be delayed beyond the original June 1990 shipping date. Computer Systems News claims that it’s difficult to find users putting SAA concepts, such as co-operative processing, into action. It quotes a recent survey of 700 mainframe sites by Sentry Market Research of Westborough, Massachusetts which found that only 32% of these users are likely to start implementing SAA by the end of 1991, and that process was going to take years to complete. There have been suggestions that to revive flagging customer interest, IBM has been exploring the possibility of of contracts with consulting companies such as the Gartner Group to devise ways of selling SAA. The trade weekly says that the Gartner Group declined to comment.
