Template-based development promising, but not a snap - developing software with industry-specific templates

Software Magazine, June, 1994 by Janet Butler

Case vendor Synon Inc., Larkspur, Calif., has chosen to be a vertical market supplier to independent software vendors who build and market templates, including Cantoc Business Systems Inc., Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada. According to Mike DeVries, director of product management, Synon's Synon/2E product is an interactive development environment for designing, prototyping, deploying and maintaining application designs.

Cantoc's Censys is an application suite built using Synon's Case technology, targeted at distribution and manufacturing markets. The system is modeled on data rather than procedural-driven designs, producing business application templates.

Another Case vendor, Texas Instruments (TI), offers templates in two areas, according to Kelly Green, product manager of TI's Advanced Information Management Division in Dallas. TI provides both Information Engineering Facility (IEF) business models, as well as full applications built with IEF. IEF is an integrated toolset whose benefits include maintenance ease, quick modification. and the ability to reuse application components, said Green.

Because software houses like Atlanta-based American Software Inc. are large custiomers, TI has developed a software house program. The vendor builds applications with IEF and offers them as models to these houses, which then use IEF to modify them. Green said TIs goal is to "see the market flooded with IEF applications," and templates offer that opportunity. Because selling IEF is Texas Instruments' main interest, he added, the company chooses to sell applications through software houses, rather than compete with companies like Dun & Bradstreet Software, Atlanta, or PeopleSoft Inc., Walnut Creek, Calif.

For its part, KnowledgeWare will likely act as a coordinator for templates built with ADW, such as those developed by Jasco. In the template arena, many Case vendors do operate largely in a broker capacity.

According to KnowledgeWare's Sam Holcman, vice president of modelware, another component of the vendor's strategy is to build relationships with other companies in domain/expertise areas. An example is Integral Inc., Walnut Creek, Calif., a provider of human resource man-agement systems. KnowledgeWare also intends to build partnerships with clients and third-party vendors specifically dedicated to this market.

One such vendor focusing on template development is Template Software. The company's Shop product is an integrated object-oriented Case tool that "pushes object technology in the distributed world ot its limits," said the firm's Pearce.

The company uses templates in three different ways. The first, the Snap template or framework, is a set of class libraries used to construct different parts of an application, like the graphical user interface (GUI) or communications portion.

The vendor's horizontal templates offer class libraries that extend the Snap framework for physical processes or workflow, for example, making these templates suited to a generic class of applications. Finally, vertical templates, which the firm is in the process of introducing, provide class libraries for industry-specific applications.