IBM to unveil 'new' AD/Cycle: firm abandons mainframe for LAN repository - Field Report

Software Magazine, Sept, 1993 by Mike Bucken

IBM has decided not to abandon the software development market despite what it now acknowledges is the failure of its AD/Cycle blueprint and Respository Manager/MVS offering.

By year-end, IBM officials promise to unveil a new development blueprint, probably with a different moniker, that includes a local-area network (LAN) repository based on object-oriented (OO) technology licensed from Object Design, Inc. (ODI), Burlington, Mass. Repository Manager/MVS is based on IBM's DB2 relational DBMS software.

Jon Hemming, manager of market strategy in the IBM development group, said that despite the difficulties of the original AD/Cycle blueprint, the firm is moving some of its technologies to the new platform. "I wouldn't say we're starting over," he said. "We're bringing a number of things over to the new [software development scheme]."

Donald Addington, president of the lone remaining original AD/Cycle inner circle member, Atlanta-based KnowledgeWare, Inc., added that "the original premises for AD/Cycle are still very valid in the marketplace. Our latest work with IBM has really focused on the LAN-based repository."

When IBM unveiled the AD/Cycle plan in 1989, officials maintained that implementation would take three to five years. However, within two years, the few mainframe-based repositories installed were not usable and many firms had returned the AD/Cycle centerpiece to IBM for a refund.

"I think [the original] AD/Cycle is now playing out its destiny and falling into the scrap heap," said Christopher Bird, president of the Dallas-based consulting firm Model Systems, Inc., and a longtime AD/Cycle watcher. "The AD/Cycle of the future will have to be based on objects. The relational model [of Repository Manager/MVS] is not enough."

IBM's Hemming noted that the mainframe repository has been "essentially stabilized. It can still be used, but there are no enhancements planned. Our direction is the workgroup, AIX and OS/2, and beyond to other Unix platforms."

However, he acknowledged that IBM faces difficulties in marketing the new development system. "We're having a hard time getting people to understand that AD/Cycle is extending to the LAN," Hemming said. "People still think AD/Cycle means mainframe, large-scale development."

INNER CIRCLE MEMBERS STUMBLE

The three original "inner circle" members gained some early success from the program before faltering. Index Technology, Inc. was merged into Sage Software, Inc., to form Intersolv Inc., Rockville, Md., while Bachman Information Systems, Inc., Burlington, Mass., and KnowledgeWare have both suffered through losses, layoffs and senior management changes during the past year.

In the past 18 months, Intersolv and Bachman resigned from the inner circle, later dubbed the International Alliance for AD/Cycle.

Intersolv President and Chief Executive Officer Kevin Burns said the decision to relinquish its inner circle position has had virtually no effect on business. "I don't remember the last time a customer asked about AD/Cycle," Burns said.

Bachman officials said the firm resigned from the alliance because of IBM directives that it concentrate on developing tools for IBM platforms. Bachman's lack of nonmainframe offerings is said to be a key reason the firm turned to Morgan Stanley & Co. to seek financing and "strategic alternatives" in an effort to escape its financial woes.

Meanwhile, KnowledgeWare has started to port its tools to non-IBM platforms, including OpenVMS from Digital Equipment Corp., Maynard Mass., and the Unix implementations of Sun Microsystems Inc., Mountain View, Calif., and Hewlett-Packard Co., Cupertino, Calif. "We fully support AD/Cycle, but we'll support the other platforms as well," Addington said. "From our standpoint, we'll continue to grow and evolve."

Even IBM officials have said the new AD/Cycle will support non-IBM systems as development and target platforms. "I wouldn't rule out developing on other people's platforms," said IBM's Hemming.

In addition, KnowledgeWare has been joined by several new firms in the alliance while IBM executives maintain that a new, streamlined group of partners will be disclosed with a new LAN repository this year. Despite the problems faced by the original partners, Hemming maintained that "every vendor would like to be 'the' vendor, but I think there will be a coalescing of marketing relationships."

Observers noted that some of the later alliance members, such as Easel Corp., Burlington, Mass., and Viasoft, Inc., Phoenix, Ariz., suffered from the relationship, while others, including Sapiens, Cary, N.C., grew steadily with IBM's help.

"By the third quarter or fourth quarter of this year, you will see a restatement of AD/Cycle and where we are going, and who the [new] best-of-breed partners are," said R.J. Belles, program manager for application and data enabling, information warehouse and AD/Cycle, and for transaction management at IBM's Roanoke, Texas, facility.

HANDS-OFF POLICY NEEDED

Model Systems' Bird suggested that the new AD/Cycle will have little chance for survival unless IBM allows its partners to make client/server development tools. "Client/server is hot, and designing client/server technology is the way to go," he said. "But IBM will have to leave the partners alone."