Dallas, Texas-based Sterling Software Inc – next target for Computer Associates International Inc? – has created a object-based application development environment for Solaris and Window clients which it claims marries business process re-engineering and data analysis, with visual programming. Sterling will use Key for Workgroup to target operating environments that use servers running Solaris, HP-UX, Windows NT and OS/2. Key for Workgroup uses Burlington, Massachusetts-based Object Design Inc’s ObjectStore database as a repository and can accommodate business models created under the Application Development Workbench and graphical interface development system Sterling took on with the acquisition of Atlanta, Georgia-based KnowledgeWare Inc last December ( CI No 2,557). It has already turned the Windows-based Application Development Workbench into Key for Enterprise 4.0, an OS/2 develoment system. Key for Workgroup costs from $3,500 for a single user; client-server implementations with methodology, modelling and visual development elements start at $45,000. Sterling, which is the eighth largest software company in the world, is heading for revenues of some $600m this financial year. The applications development division it created out of KnowledgeWare has some 5,000 customers and did $45m in the six months to the end of March.
