RESULTS OF COMMERCIAL SOFTWARE SURVEY

"Top line" results of a market research study conducted to assess the most important factors in commercial programming language selections found the top four factors to be:

• reliability;
• performance issues;
• ability to handle large programs; and
• standardization

The survey was conducted to measure awareness of Ada in four different vertical markets. The goal was to ascertain awareness in the commercial marketplace of the features and benefits that Ada can deliver.

Some of the other significant "top line" results of the survey include the following:

• When people think of computer languages, the first thing that pops into their minds is COBOL.
• There were no statistically significant differences among the four industries in any of their responses or opinions.
• When asked which language the respondents would prefer for company use, C++ came in slightly ahead of "don't know."
• People are aware of language advertising.
• Word of mouth and advertising came in one-two or two-one for all languages, as the most effective ways of reaching the target markets.
• Not one of the people surveyed have ever received literature about Ada, nor have they ever been approached/contacted by an Ada salesperson or marketing representative.

For complete information regarding results of the survey, please see the article source listed below.

[Source: Crafts, Ralph. "Ada Promotional Campaign: Results of Commercial Software Survey," Ada Strategies. July 1994, Vol.8, No.7.]

NEW LAWTON SOFTWARE WRITTEN IN ADA

Lawton Software, Inc. has released version 1.5 of STETSON, the Software Test and Evaluation Tracking System. STETSON is written in Ada '83 and uses the AdaSAGE development libraries for screen manipulation and database management capabilities.

STETSON is the first module to be released of a full-life-cycle project management system. The software allows project personnel at one or more sites to manage the defects associated with any software project.

The new release includes a reworked user interface based on the IBM CUA model. The developers have also reworked and extended the import/export capabilities of STETSON so that all internal tables may be moved in or out of the system.

[Source: Lawton Software, Inc. News Release. For more information or to obtain STETSON, contact the company at: P.O. Box 3477, Frederick, MD 21705-3477. (301) 845 7812]

RATIONAL REVENUE INCREASES

Rational Software Corporation recently reported increased revenue and earnings for the first fiscal quarter of 1994. Revenue for the quarter was $16,983,000, a 3.9% increase compared with $16,343,000 for the same quarter in the previous year. The company experienced increasing sales in its Rose object-oriented software-development product and in professional services, partially offset by expected declining sales in proprietary hardware products.

[Source: Rational Software Corporation news Release, "Rational Announces First-Quarter Results." For more information, contact: Paul D. Levy, president and CEO at (408) 496-3891 or Ralph Alexander, executive vice president and CFO at (408) 496-3652.]

TARTAN INTRODUCES 'C50-TARGETED ADA DEVELOPMENT SYSTEM

The new Tarten 'C50-Targeted Ada Development System has made the benefits of the Ada language available for DSP applications. Some of the features provided that enhance real-time embedded applications are:

• access to DSP features of the TI 320C50 processors;
• a structured multiple library environment for developing and sharing code;
• Ada Runtime Client package (ARTClient) which allows control of runtime tasking mechanisms;
• a flexible linker that excludes unused code and tightly controls program layout in memory; and
• a full-featured symbolic source- and machine- level debugger.

[Source: Defence Electronics. New Products: 'C50-Targeted Ada Development System. August 1994, Vol. 26, No. 8.]