UK distributor Protek Ltd, Maidenhead, Berkshire, is putting together a marketing effort for CenterLine Software Inc’s strategic move into new markets with the ResourceCenter software re-use tool. Boston, Massachusetts-based CenterLine’s main products are CodeCenter for C and ObjectCenter for C++ development. Tools under pressure But the company has found its market for these tools coming under pressure from major vendors like Hewlett-Packard Co and Sun Microsystems Inc, which share the advantage of being able to gain access for Softbench and SparcWorks to a pretty wide market on the back of their systems sales. So CenterLine, despite its fast growth over the past four years, has had a look around and come up with ResourceCenter, on the grounds that the reason most corporates got into object technology in the first place was because of the siren call of the re-use lobby. So far, that goal has proved elusive. The problem is that lots of bits of code are being built up into libraries, but there are not many tools around to help programmers find the relevant bits of code, whether their own or from a third party. With ResourceCenter, says CenterLine, users can implement object re-use immediately, using current code, class libraries and other assets, because the tool does not require the implementation of a classification scheme for the repository of objects held. The software will be released on November 17 in the UK and will be featured by Protek at next month’s Software Development exhibition at the Birmingham National Exhibition Centre. ResourceCenter costs UKP16,000, which buys a server with the repository and five clients. The only noticeable fly in the CenterLine strategy so far has come in the form of Hitachi Ltd, which has recently launched its own re-use tool, Object Reuser. Protek’s marketing director Paul Fitzgibbon remains confident that his company’s focused approach to the re-use market will prove successful. He says that Protek knows which organisations in the UK are using C++ and are serious about object-oriented development. The number of such firms is not large, he admits, but they are in the City and the telecommunications industry – and Protek knows who they are.
