TOTAL(ID:4596/tot001)Cincom's 4gl database languageTom Nies, Concom, 1968 Paired with Socrates (report generator) and Environ (terminal comms program), eventually ran on all major hardware vendors' systems. Related languages
References: in [ACM] Proceedings of the 1977 ACM Annual Conference, Seattle, Washington, Oct. 16-19, 1977 view details External link: Online copy Extract: Cincom Milestones Cincom milestones: ? On September 29, 1968, from a card table in a basement office of Tom Nies, and an investment of just US$600, Cincom became the first software company to offer an integrated suite of database (TOTAL®), data communications (ENVIRON/1®) and reporting generation software (SOCRATES®). What Nies didn't realize at the time, was that he was also founding the then-radical idea of selling computer software as a product. Today, when there are thousands of software firms in an industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars, it's difficult to conceive of a time when software was freely given away with hardware. But that is the way it was before 1968, when Nies was a leading sales representative for IBM. ? In the ?70s, with the release of its TOTAL software for every conceivable hardware platform and minicomputer, Cincom was recognised by Gartner as the first software company to see the importance of portability of software across computer architectures. ? Cincom was also the first among major players to address the concept of ?automating the process of automation? with its release of MANTIS®, the first 4GL (GL?) application development tool. ? Gartner also considers Cincom to have been first to state that implementation language must be independent of database management systems and data structures, which led to Cincom?s release of the first logical, user-view, directory-driven Total Information System?. ? Cincom also released the first integrated manufacturing and financial application solutions ? In the ?80s, Cincom released the ULTRA relational database for digital platforms; Net/Master, the then most comprehensive network management system; and SUPRA® for IBM platforms. Supra was rated by database management systems guru, Dr. Edgar F. Codd as the most relational of all databases. ? During the ?90s, Cincom launched new object-oriented database solutions, automated selling solutions, customer service and retention solutions; a new CONTROL:Manufacturing? product; Cincom Encompass® and OverC® call centre solutions; and XML database solutions. Cincom Systems has continued to perform strongly over the last few years, despite the challenging and turbulent economic climate. ? Cincom has not only survived, but in fact, calendar 2001 and 2002 were its best two years in a row ever. (See http://www.cincom.com/pr/financial/.) And in calendar 2003 Cincom currently is now on track to produce greater profits than the total profits of those past two years combined. ? In fiscal year 2002 Cincom realized a return on investment in its own infrastructure capital of 196.5%. This achievement was not due to downsizing but flowed directly from a disciplined strategy of keeping its costs aligned with demand growth. And, equally importantly, from rigorously applying the same enterprise software and systems the company sells to its customers. in [ACM] Proceedings of the 1977 ACM Annual Conference, Seattle, Washington, Oct. 16-19, 1977 view details We knew we had to get hold of the data and properly control it. So we began delivering programmes that we called database management systems. In the early days we sought to do the total job of database management. The software we offered would provide all the database programming logic for the customer and it would also manage all the data. So we called the product Total because Total did the total job. It became the most famous and successful software product of the 1970s decade. Total was to the software industry what the Model T Ford was to automobiles - Total helped to make the industry. Our success began to attract interest that many others capitalised on ? quite handsomely. in [ACM] Proceedings of the 1977 ACM Annual Conference, Seattle, Washington, Oct. 16-19, 1977 view details Resources
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