IBM Announces Third Release of Industry-Leading SanFrancisco Application Components.ARMONK, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 29, 1998--Today IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) announced the third release of its IBM SanFrancisco(Note A) application business components for Java(Note B). With this new release developers can now rapidly build Accounts Receivable/Accounts Payable applications, as well as simultaneously track transactions in multiple currencies, which is essential for applications that support the new Euro currency. In addition, IBM has expanded platform support and made performance and usability enhancements to previously released SanFrancisco application components. IBM SanFrancisco is a Java-based collection of components that allows developers to assemble applications from existing parts, rather than build from scratch. Release 1.3 Features and Additional Platform Support The SanFrancisco Accounts Receivable/Accounts Payable framework provides a sound architecture and extensible, object-oriented implementation. As a result, developers can build financial applications much quicker and easier. The framework supports features such as ledger types, ledger accounts, log items, ledger items, installments, collection documents, allocations, payments and revaluation Revaluation A calculated adjustment to a country's official exchange rate relative to a chosen baseline. The baseline can be anything from wage rates to the price of gold to a foreign currency. In a fixed exchange rate regime, only a decision by a country's government (i.e. . The new Accounts Receivable/Accounts Payable framework tightly integrates with the General Ledger General Ledger A company's accounting records. This formal ledger contains all the financial accounts and statements of a business. Notes: The ledger uses two columns: one records debits, the other has offsetting credits. framework that IBM shipped with its initial release last year. Both General Ledger and Accounts Payable/Receivable, like all SanFrancisco frameworks, are Year 2000-ready. Previously available on AIX (Advanced Interactive eXecutive) IBM's Unix-based operating system which runs on its Intellistation workstations and pSeries, p5, iSeries and i5 server families. (Note A), Windows NT (Windows New Technology) A 32-bit operating system from Microsoft for Intel x86 CPUs. NT is the core technology in Windows 2000 and Windows XP (see Windows). Available in separate client and server versions, it includes built-in networking and preemptive multitasking. (Note B) and OS/400(Note A), SanFrancisco has expanded platform support to include Sun Solaris(Note B), HP-UX HP's version of Unix that runs on its 9000 family. It is based on SVID and incorporates features from BSD Unix along with several HP innovations. (operating system) HP-UX - The version of Unix running on Hewlett-Packard workstations. (Note B) and Siemens Reliant UNIX UNIX Operating system for digital computers, developed by Ken Thompson of Bell Laboratories in 1969. It was initially designed for a single user (the name was a pun on the earlier operating system Multics). (Note B) platforms using the Oracle database to provide single phase transaction support. "IBM's SanFrancisco is unique in the industry. No other company today offers software developers and enterprise customers pre-tested, reusable Java components that provide the basis for rapidly building e-business applications with content from IBM and our partners," said John Swainson John Burley Swainson (July 31, 1925 - May 13, 1994) was a politician from the U.S. state of Michigan, as well as the 42nd Governor of Michigan. Swainson was born in Windsor, Ontario, Canada and moved to Port Huron, Michigan at the age of two with his family. , general manager, Application and Integration Middleware A redundant term for "middleware." The concept of middleware is integration. See middleware. , IBM Software Group. "SanFrancisco enables developers to compete more effectively in today's marketplace, while broadening their market opportunity." SanFrancisco, WebSphere and VisualAge for Java: A Winning Combination Recent announcements from IBM have created an unmatched portfolio of products to build, deploy and manage e-business applications. Last week IBM announced the integration of its industry-leading transactional server technologies into a unified WebSphere(Note A) family of Web application servers. The expanded WebSphere family brings together the Web server, transaction processing Updating the appropriate database records as soon as a transaction (order, payment, etc.) is entered into the computer. It may also imply that confirmations are sent at the same time. Transaction processing systems are the backbone of an organization because they update constantly. , Web commerce and distributed component technologies of IBM's WebSphere Application Server, TXSeries(Note A), Net.Commerce(Note A) and Component Broker(Note A) products. The family of WebSphere Application Servers is designed to meet the different needs of customers building e-business applications, from simple Web publishing Creating a Web site and placing it on the Web server. A Web site is a collection of HTML pages with the home page typically named INDEX.HTML. Web sites are designed using Web authoring software which provides a graphical layout capability or by hand coding in HTML or both. to enterprise-scale transaction processing . IBM's VisualAge(Note A) for Java development tool is the only integrated Java development environment that supports the development of Java applications A Java program that is run stand alone. The Java Virtual Machine in the client or server is interpreting the instructions. Contrast with Java applet. See servlet. that can scale from Windows NT to OS/390(Note A) enterprise servers. VisualAge for Java V2.0 also incorporates authoring "wizards" that are custom-built for working with SanFrancisco business components, making it simpler for developers to extend SanFrancisco frameworks to business applications. IBM SanFrancisco offers customers pre-tested, reusable components that provide application content to deploy on any of these servers. Since this entire product line is built on Java and converging to support the Enterprise JavaBeans See EJB. (specification, business, programming) Enterprise JavaBeans - (EJB) A server-side component architecture for writing reusable business logic and portable enterprise applications. EJB is the basis of Sun's Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE). (EJB (Enterprise JavaBeans) A software component in Sun's J2EE platform, which provides a pure Java environment for developing and running distributed applications. EJBs are written as software modules that contain the business logic of the application. ) programming model, customers will be able to easily move an application "upstream" as their quality of service requirements dictate. SanFrancisco Enhancements to Existing Frameworks Each element of SanFrancisco -- the Foundation, Common Business Objects, Graphical User Interface graphical user interface (GUI) Computer display format that allows the user to select commands, call up files, start programs, and do other routine tasks by using a mouse to point to pictorial symbols (icons) or lists of menu choices on the screen as opposed to having to (GUI (Graphical User Interface) A graphics-based user interface that incorporates movable windows, icons and a mouse. The ability to resize application windows and change style and size of fonts are the significant advantages of a GUI vs. a character-based interface. ) Framework, General Ledger, Warehouse Management and Order Management frameworks -- have been enhanced. Highlights of these enhancements include: -- Faster performance by implementing reduced path length in Foundation -- Usability continues to be a focus area for Release 1.3. Examples include several GUI framework enhancements, additional documentation, and additional samples that demonstrate SanFrancisco function and usage -- Additional Common Business Objects JavaBeans samples, along with a component catalog and authoring "wizards" to enable developers to easily generate JavaBeans -- New functions added to Order Management framework: support for back-to-back orders, quotes, replanning, shipment, stock movement, credit sales, multi-client support, and direct sales -- Warehouse Management framework adds new function to support quality control, replanning, shipment, stock take, multi-client support, and "product kit" definitions All elements of SanFrancisco, including the new Accounts Payable/Receivable framework, feature run time National Language Support for English, German, French, Italian, Spanish and Japanese. Enhanced Support and Educational Resources In addition, 18 months of technical support is now provided to new Solution Developers (ISVs) as well as 12 months of technical support to all new end-user customers at no charge. IBM provides a range of educational courses to help developers gain familiarity with both object oriented See object technology and object-oriented programming. programming in Java, and how to reap the most benefit from working with SanFrancisco. IBM offers partners these courses through its worldwide Solution Partnership Centers, as well as at new San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden Technology Centers that have been established in LaHulpe, Belgium, Austin, TX, and Tokyo, Japan. Information about class schedules and course materials are available online at http://www.ibm.com/java/sanfrancisco. Additionally, several examples of integrating SanFrancisco-built applications with Lotus(Note A) products are available from SF Technical Marketing Support. To request these materials, send an e-mail to sanfran@us.ibm.com. Future Directions and EJB Support As with all its middleware and server products, IBM will migrate SanFrancisco to support EJB, as the specification continues to take shape. This will allow SanFrancisco business objects, frameworks and applications to run on a wide range of server infrastructures in addition to the SanFrancisco Foundation infrastructure, and the WebSphere family of Web application servers. Developers can begin building distributed applications An application made up of distinct components running in separate runtime environments, usually on different platforms connected via a network. Typical distributed applications using SanFrancisco today. As EJB matures to offer function equivalent to SanFrancisco, IBM will add native interfaces to SanFrancisco, making it possible to easily migrate SanFrancisco applications to an EJB base. About IBM SanFrancisco IBM SanFrancisco application business components have been designed and built in the marketplace in cooperation with leading software vendors from around the world. Over 6,000 companies have downloaded the evaluation code that is available on our web site, and over 700 of those companies have entered into licensing agreements. The first SanFrancisco-built applications have already begun hitting the market, and many more are expected to be delivered in the next 6 months. With the delivery of Release 3, SanFrancisco offers developers roughly 750,000 lines of Java code to give them a significant head start in building line of business server applications. This code is comprised of over 800 components that provide the structure, interrelationships and default business logic for developers to use to accelerate application development. No other company offers a shipping product that provides developers with as rich a collection of components for building e-business applications. SanFrancisco frameworks currently available include: Foundation for Distributed Applications, Common Business Objects, General Ledger Framework, GUI Framework, Warehouse Management Framework, Order Management Framework, and now Accounts Payable/Receivable. For additional information regarding IBM SanFrancisco, visit the Web site http://www.ibm.com/java/sanfrancisco. About IBM IBM is the world's largest information technology company, with 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate. IBM Software offers the widest range of applications, middleware and operating systems Operating systems can be categorized by technology, ownership, licensing, working state, usage, and by many other characteristics. In practice, many of these groupings may overlap. for all types of computing platforms, allowing customers to take full advantage of the new era of e-business. The fastest way to get more information about IBM software is through the IBM Software home page at http://www.software.ibm.com. More information about IBM's Java initiatives can be found on the Web at http://www.ibm.com/java. (Note A) Indicates trademark or registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation. (Note B) Java and Enterprise JavaBeans are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: JAVA[3]) is an American vendor of computers, computer components, computer software, and information-technology services, founded on 24 February 1982. , Inc. All other trademarks are owned by the respective company. |
|
||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion