| I have seen AS at a large account. I also had the opportunity to talk
to some of the users.
AS is IBM's info center and end user information manipulation and display
system. It accesses both DB2 and VSAM files. VSAM files are treated as tables
that can be "joined" as needed. At least in the version I looked at (6 months
ago), DB2 tables had to be "imported" and that had to be done via the AS
application language. The customer expected that access difference to be
resolved soon.
AS has many components. It has a spreadsheet, graphics, application
development language, report writer, etc. packaged with a PF-Key (function
key) driven user interface.
The graphics component is very good. The graphics system is based on IBM's
GDDM. There are 8 standard graph types with numerous modification options.
There is a good bit of flexibility built-in to the graphics software. As
an example, the size of the graph can be scaled. Labels on the graph can
be moved at will (e.g. the labels on a pie graph default to outside the
pie. The user can select to move them inside). The "other" threshold on
a display can be user-selected (e.g. if the user wants an item displayed,
even though that item represents on 5% of the whole, the user can set the
threshold at 4%, thereby displaying what he wishes.
As users complete such report and graphics development, the reports can
be stored and recalled by PF Keys.
The application development language is very similar to PL/1. Consequently,
it is the least-liked piece of the product. There are very few end-users
willing to learn that language. But the basic components are complete enough
that the development language is not often needed.
Keep in mind that AS was developed by IBM European development group.
That group came from the old IBM European time-sharing group. Those people
know the end-user community. They designed AS with a good user interface.
It does not look like a "typical" IBM software product.
As for price, I'm not familiar with the list price, but it must be subject
to considerable discounting. My customer had AS on a 3090-200. The customer
paid $60,000 with unlimited free updates. That's competitive!
Yes, AS does use system resources. But most users expect such software
to consume sizable compute cycles, so it isn't a nasty surprise.
To summarize, AS is not perfect. It's development language is difficult,
and it does consume resources. But this is not old-style IBM software. The
interfaces are very well designed, the graphics are powerful and flexible,
and the report writing capability is more than adequate. AS sales have
increased dramatically (up 223% in 1987 vs. 1986). It is becoming the dominant
software in this category in the IBM world.
---- Michael Booth
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