Plessey Co’s Hoskyns Group Plc is hoping the release of an improved automated control environment will be able take the worry out of CASE and the pain out of methodology – and pave the way for it to make a major expansion into the US software engineering market. The Professional Information Systems Management line, Prism, is an MS-DOS-based environment, designed for all phases of software development, which Hoskyns hopes will capitalise on the growth of computer aided software engineering and an increasing eagerness within companies to adopt consistent approaches to software development. The Prism environment, for VAX and IBM-compatible machines, includes a range of Hoskyns’s methodologies as well as DesignAid, an analyst workbench, and LifeCycle Manager, which uses DesignAid for planning and networking; both are licensed from Southfield, Michigan-based NasTec Corp and are available as separate products. Hoskyns is hoping that its long experience in methodologies – its SDM Systems Development Methodology was introduced in 1970 – will give it a head start in providing total integrated solutions to customers, and it claims to have clarified hitherto vague and long-winded methodologies. Prism first appeared in 1984, and an updated version will be launched formally in the spring of next year; Hoskyns claims Prism is applicable to almost all commercial and defence applications and that it has been adopted by over 50 companies including ICI Plc, Lucas Aerospace Plc and Commercial Union Plc.
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