|  |     
    Charles,
    
    I've heard that the Team Leader and most of the team on the "recently 
    released" windows 4gl product, have left Ingres/Ask to form a new company 
    in the US.
    
    Rumour has it that they were unhappy with ASK's future plans for their 
    product.
    
    I'll try and find out more about this today.
    
    Iain.
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|  |     From the March 4 issue of UNIGRAM, page 5:
    
    "In what looks like bad news for ASK Computer Systems Inc's Ingres
    Corp, key members of the Windows 4GL development team-including
    Neil Goodman, who was one of the company's leading database
    architects-have left the company to join a start-up led by Marty
    Sprinzen, ex-international vice president of Ingres.  The new
    company is funded by venture capital, is believed to be based in
    San Francisco and is expected to develop an applications generator
    product to rival Ingres.  Industry sources have learned that the
    team left because the members disliked working on a product that
    was rightly or wrongly perceived as being optimized for just one
    vertical market-manufacturing.  However, it looks as if the news 
    could be worse for internal morale than for the Ingres product 
    itself, since, as UK managing director Mike Hedger says "the Windows
    4GL product is already developed, out in the field, supported, and
    is a stable product".  Furthermore, plans for the product's
    development over the next two years have been prepared and submitted
    so that the architectural side of Windows 4GL appears to bave been
    safeguarded.  And a new version of Windows 4GL will be launched
    shortly, as Ingres planned."
    
    typos are mine.
    Mark
    
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|  |     
    On the Windows/4gl side :
    
    I was at an Ingres UK windows/4gl seminar, where they showed the
    product to some large customers.  After the presentations and
    demonstrations, one of the marketing managers asked the customers if
    they could see any situations where the tool may be useful !
    
    It very much appeared - and still appears - to be a product that no-one
    in Ingres is sure what it can be used for.
    
    Just an observation,
    
    Iain Stephen.
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