Informix Corp used its Worldwide User Conference in Seattle to unveil a new graphical development tool which the company says will make it easier to view and manage complex forms of data. Designed as a front end to its Universal Data Option (UDO), Informix’s object relational add-on to Dynamic Server, the new tool, called Visionary, enables customers to drill down and manipulate all complex data types and create applications on the fly. Informix’s last attempt at a graphical development tool, New Era, was met with a cool reception from developers and now the product has been relegated to what one spokesperson called maintenance mode – a term widely acknowledged as marketing speak for dumping a product altogether. But Dr Michael Stonebraker, the company’s VP and chief technology officer, says Visionary is a new paradigm for programmers and he’s confident it will change the way they develop and manage applications and data. He said the tool provided a way of panning around data, in much the same way as you use a zoom lens on a camera, to see lots of different types of information. Visionary, which may change its name before final shipping, is available in alpha now and the beta version comes out on August 30. The full product will be rolled out by November. Stonebraker also used the conference as a platform to reaffirm the company’s commitment to object relational technology. He said that the majority of companies were still using SQL as a way of gaining access to simple forms of data. But he predicts that, over time, organizations will inevitably begin to add more rich content to their business applications. And the minute you start adding these different forms of data, the harder it becomes to access using standard SQL programming. I can’t think of a vertical market where this won’t happen, he said, we will move from a relational world to a world made up of universal applications. I guarantee you will do that. He said Informix had an absolute commitment to moving to a universal database market, but added that people would need something better than 4GLs for these types of applications. He said the new development tool, Visionary, was based on SQL but took the technology to a much higher level notation.
