Prime Computer UK Ltd has announced PI/Open, which builds on Prime Information, the Pick-derived database management and applications development system, and will be available on a range of Unix machines. It is supplied complete with a suite of integrated development tools. These include the Info/Basic compiler and source-level debugger, the Inform report generator and Sort/Select processor, Perform command language and menus, on-line help and built-in editors. There is also object code compatibility between PI/open applications. It incorporates a number of features to accelerate development processes including: flexible dictionaries, each PI/open data file is defined through a dictionary that can describe single files and records, or many similar files and records; flexible vocabulary; a flexible Data Manager that enables all programs to share data and dictionary files, and to store, retrieve and updata data without limiting the size or number of files created; multi-valued fields, within which PI/open can be grouped into an association, forming a structure of related items; and Dynamic files, which automatically grow or shrink with the addition or deletion of records. It will be available from March on Prime’s EXL 7000, the MIPS Computer Systems Inc RC range with RISC/os and Hewlett-Packard Co’s 9000 Series 800 business servers with HP-UX, from March. June will see its arrival on the Digital Equipment Corp line under Ultrix, all Sun Microsystems Inc machines under SunOS and IBM Corp’s RS/6000 under AIX. In August it will be out on iAPX-86 machines running the Unixes from Santa Cruz Operation Inc and Interactive Systems Corp. Nigel Davis, vice-president for Prime Europe, says that PI/open will fit into the Pick marketplace, the database central ground as he termed it, alongside competitors such as Universe and Unidata. For the future, he predicts that application development tools, desktop integration, additional layered products, database independence and object orientation will be made available within three years. It is priced at UKP300 to UKP325 per terminal, depending on the number of layers. Prime claims 350,000 users for Prime Information and is confident that a large number will migrate to PI/open. Prime launched the product in the US this week.
