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UPDATE | ||||
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Last Updated: Wednesday, November 5, 1997 5:00 p.m. PST Also see: Day One and Two and Pictures | ||||
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Editor's |
We have finally posted the last of our notes -- thanks for your patience! Although we wish we could do more, we have content from the Closing Session and the notes we took from interviewing Pierre LeBlanc about his sessions for the day -- the Opening Keynote and the Connectivity Session. We felt that these represented the best "bang for the buck" for Saturday's content. For those who have asked why we take the time to do this, here is the story. We used to live and work in Anchorage, Alaska, and could not always attend the conferences because of the travel expense. The notes that others took and posted to the old CompuServe forum were always much appreciated. Since then, we have moved to Sunnyvale, California -- right next door to ACI US headquarters. Also since then, the rise of the Internet and the World-Wide-Web have made much richer electronic content more available to everyone. So, to give back to the 4D community at large -- and most especially to give back to those who live far away -- we take a few notes and pictures and put them up on this web page. For the curious communications geeks out there, here are the tools we used in preparing these pages: this time we had both the QuickTake 150 and a borrowed Kodak DC1200 digital camera with a 10MB PC card. (Purists can tell the difference in the pictures, no doubt.) We used a rented Apple PowerBook 5300ce to take notes directly into Claris Home Page 2.0 when we weren't busy demonstrating MemWatch with it. Lemke Software's Graphic Converter 2.9.1 was used to downsample, crop, and convert the images. (We also used this excellent "Poor Man's Photoshop" in our best-guess effort to color-balance the photos -- we learned that lighting conditions can vary greatly in the conference rooms.) A Hitachi laptop with special software was used to download the Kodak pictures from its PC card to a floppy disk, then transferred to the PowerBook. The QuickTake 150's pictures couldn't be downloaded until we returned home from Denver, as we forgot that one critical piece of driver software. When it was installed, we used the Apple QuitckTake drivers to directly transfer those pictures. Lastly, we used Fetch 3.0.3 to upload the web site content to our Santa Clara internet service provider, and Netscape Navigator 2.0 to test the pages. While in times past we had used our Ricochet wireless modem to directly upload the site content from the PowerBook "live", this year we used a borrowed Internet connection. This resulted in a less-than-live update, but considering all the other technical traumas we endured, it was the least of our worries. Special thanks go to Larry Hagood for graciously providing the Kodak camera and the time downloading the images from it and to Ron Dell'Aquila for generously providing the borrowed internet connection. Among anonymous others, thanks also go to Eric Drucker and Karen Green for taking some of the photos when we could not, and for tolerating our anal-retentive requests for getting the properly-spelled names of those in the photos in addition to their pictures. | |||
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Closing
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[Editor's note: as with some of the other sessions, this is somewhat quoted but mostly a paraphrase of what was said. Please treat it accordingly, and confirm any specific item you read before taking it for rganted.] Wayne Carlson's Closing Notes We made it! I'm so impressed that we could do this. I'm humbled and excited. Lots of people contributed; from the deepest pores of my body (laughter)... I want to thank several special individuals who helped to pull this off. Pam Dazey (clapping)... Other people I want to thank: Tad Wheeler for the beautiful brochure. Mark Yelich: We also need to apologize for all the projects that we put behind. Wayne: Steve Hussey, thanks for putting together the conference CD. This is an incredible piece of work. We should charge 900 bucks for this alone. Other people to thank: ACI. We couldn't have done it without their help, especially Doris Beaulieu. Also, I was really impressed when Mark Yelich put the confeence together. The speakers are really great. All of you stand and we will clap for you. (The audience claps as the presenters stand.) Thanks to the people who offered the door prizes. We raffled off over 60 items of varying value. (The audience claps as those developers who deonated items stand.) (Wayne looking toward Mark Yelich) Mark Yelich. When I thought of this, I thought of him. He has carried the 3rd party bandwagon. Thank you for making the third party market better. (At this the crowd spontaneously claps for Wayne, too, and several developers shout their thanks from the audience.) Wayne: Thanks to the Hyatt, too. With all of mother nature's storms, to pull of what they did today with three or four people is amazing. (The audience claps for the Hyatt manager.) (Wayne hands the microphone over to Bruce Finch.) The Future of ACI with Bruce Finch How do you know this is a developer conference? You put a sales guy at the end, and only after you announce that a bartender will be available after the session. (The crowd laughs.) [Editor's note: the Hyatt had been snowed in, and only a few of the hotel staff members had been able to make it in that day. However, there was plenty of alcohol available to comfort the hotel guests -- the hotel manager had announced that the bartender was one of the staff members to brave the snow drifts.] (Bruce, continuing) The message about the future of ACI other than we might move to Denver if this continues is... (more laughter from the crowd) Let's talk about the future of ACI. The future is now. The future is in this room. Next year I want to say that the future is in this room (when the room is) three times this size. We are trying; bear with us. We are listening to what you are saying. We are going to implement some partner programs and some changes. Having said that, my message is to not look too far ahead. All of you, we have to sell what we have right now. We can't talk about version 6.5 or version 7. (Laughter from the crowd.) We can say those words, but that is not what we have today. That is not what makes us money. We are here to make money. So, we have to sell what we have today. Please don't look past what 4D is today. 4D is the best on the market, period. Too often we get caught up in what 4D could be; look at what it can do today. You chose 4D; see it right now. We can show you the future, but do not look past what we have today. For every problem I hear about, I also hear about a workaround until we get the next version. The futue is now. The world is not a perfect place. Microsoft is a classic example of this. For those who want to compare ACI and Microsoft, thank you! They are a US$12,000,000,000 company. I like being compared to a US$12,000,000,000 company. There are a couple of things we want to do as a compnay. One of the things I am announceing right now is 4D version 6.0.5. It is a beta version. It fixes things so you don't have (to use) a workaround. It fixes (more than) 70 things. Why is that important? Because ACI has opened he beta program to the partners (Audience claps). Go, download 6.0.5. This (availability) is (for) all (the products) -- 4D, Server, Compiler, etc. There will be a product CD on december 1st. It is now avialble only to partners on the ftp site. With that, we will have another evening with ACI.I will introduce Pierre LeBlanc, Doris Beaulieu, Gordon Muirhead, Claude Cohen, and Jean-Pierre Ribreau [Editor's note: the rest of the closing session was, as Bruce indicated, a questions-and-answer session with the ACI employees as introduced. Wayne Miller ran around the audience Phil Donohue-style, passing the microphone to questioners. We have attempted to reproduce the questions and answers as best we could; however, we are human and do make errors at times. Please independently verify for yourself any critical facts presented here before relying on them in any decision-making process. Also, where possible, we have attempted to capture the names of the questioner and answerer -- please advise us of any misspellings...] Question: You mentioned that Microsoft is a US$12,000,000,000 company; what is ACI? Bruce: ACI is privately held. [Editor's note: we take Bruce's answer to mean that ACI doesn't like to reveal their annul sales in a public forum.] Question: How many copies of 4D version 6 have been sold? Bruce: Lots. Follow-up question: Could you provide a less round number? Bruce: Less than millions. I don't know. Question: What is the percentage of Windows versus MacOS products that are sold? Bruce: Entering the year, we were 80% Mac. Leaving the year we are 65% / 35% Mac/Windows. Our goal (for the year) was 50-50; we didn't quite make it. (However, for the) developer products we are 50-50 (right now). Question: You mentioned that there would be changes in the developer programs; could you expand on that? Bruce: Change in the developers program... We have a very good idea of what we want to do, and came with intent of announcing what we had in mind. But (after litening to the opinions of the developers at this conference) we don't feel like we should do it right now, so we are holding off to make sure. We will be making a major overhaul, to adapt to more than one kind of developer. Jim Rietz: You said that there have been 70 fixes in 4D version 6.0.5. Can you name them? Is there a list? Bruce: Yes, there is a llist. Scott Vanderbilt: How much money is ACI setting aside for marketing to the Windows market in the next 6 to 12 months? Bruce: More than we have (been setting aside). We are now beginning our budget cycle for 1998. We want to do different types of marketing, including some partnering with developers. We don't have dollar amounts, but it will be more than you have seen in the past couple of years combined. (Spontaneous clapping from the audience.) Last night (at the Evening with ACI Q & A session), we heard the need for marketing from ACI. We will do a better job of it. James Beldock: Is there a person to talk to or (a place to) ftp (from) to get comparative marketing information? Doris: Are you a current partner? James: Yes. Doris: You will get that info. It is on the (partners program) CD. Bob Miller: (I have a) comment about bundling 4D Server. Right now, it comes with a 4D Language Reference manual, but no 4D Backup manuals. Are there plans to re-package 4D Server for end-users for vertical market applications? (Spontaneous clapping from the audience.) JPR: I know plenty (of people) are asking for a 4D Server runtime, a low-priced server to compete with Paradox. I know you need this. We have been thinking about the possibility of running compiled applications that would be limited to 5 users; then you would have to upgrade. [Editor's note: The audience had an uncharacteristically emotional response to this answer. Several people stood up and shouted their concern about the five-user limit, including your editor, who pointed out that the limit effectively emasculated the otherwise goodness of the deal. JPR eventually calmed everyone down and asked how many people would be interested in this new licencing arrangement; in response, almost everyone -- approximately 80% -- raised their hands.] Larry Wolf: Will you consider selling more or custom types of 4D Server expansion packs? Claude: We tried that one month ago for a German customer -- 320 licenses on one floppy. It was such a pain that we decided to stick with 50- or 100-user sized expansion packs. What would you like? Larry: More options. Robert Broussard: I work for clients that have some very large databases, and 4D Backup is very important to them. The Mac version was good, but the NT version is problematic. We reported them (the problems) in September of 1996. We started last week testing our (4D Server version) 1.5.4 database, and some of the same errors happened now as (they did back) then. We talked with technical support, and they were surprised that we used the (4D Backup external commands added to the 4D) language. Our clients are surprised that 4D Backup crashes the server. We would like a bug fix list. What can we do? JPR: About 4D Backup, I don't know what to say. It has been beta for a long time; I don't know when it goes final. It will be (available) only (on) version 6. Since the beginning of October this version was supposed to solve all problems for all Windows datafiles larger than 2 GB. If it is not solved (by using this new version), then contact us via the usual way. We will report the bugs. Paul Greenman: Will the posted bug list include workarounds? I would be happy to post mine. JPR: Victor will give you the workarounds. Larry Klein: I have three questions. 1) Would you reconsider your pricing on web clients? It's nice, but the average price for an installation costs US$1,000 or US$2,000. 2) I have a number of problems with the system and network components. Which ver of the network components should you use on Mac, and which should you use on a PC? Technical support has been unhelpful. 3) I work in the academic world. You have to compete with Microsoft Back Office that gives it away for nearly free. Will you reconsider your academic pricing? JPR: Regarding the network components: use the latest version. Larry: That hasn't worked. JPR: I didn't say always use the latest version. Use the latest version as of today. That is the good one. Bruce: Regarding your questions 1 and 3, the internet (web client) pricing -- we have examined that. We are revamping what we recommend and support in the near future. Regarding academic pricing. Microsoft poisoned the well. What we did in (our pricing structure for) 4D version 6 is (that) we dropped the prices across the board. We didn't set aside a special group, so right now we don't have a special academic price. [Editor's note: as with the compiled-only 4D Server licensing, there was an emotional response from the crowd about the issue of academic pricing with mor than a few audience members shouting their disapproval to Bruce's answer to Larry's question.] Gary Seybold: What are ACI's plans for developers conferences? Bruce: This is a third-party summit. ACI sponsors and supports it. It is fantastic. We will have our developers conference when we are ready to introduce new technology and (talk about) where we are going. This time, that will be right before we ship the product. (Spontaneous clapping from the audice.) [Editor's note: we assume this to mean that the next developers confernece will happen right before 4D version 6.5 or 4D version 7 ships.] Gary: The other issue -- what are ACI's plans to foster growth in the population of peope who know 4D? I look in the CU [Editor: Cornell University?] curriculum and there was no 4D being taught there. What plans do you have for starting a program to get your product in the hearts and minds of younger people? Bruce: I applaud that myself. Education is a great place for the product. I would give the product away to universities if we could do that. It is a priority, we understand it. It is more of a long term thing. We will get it into education; we believe it is essential. Rich Gay: I hesitate to say anything. But, regarding Paul Greenman's question -- JPR, you mentioned to ask Victor. I applaud that resource, but that gives a lot of work to whoever does it. JPR: When I say that Victor will tell you, I mean that we will put it on the (4D-)NUG signed Victor. Rich Gay: Comment -- there has been a tremendous change at ACI in the past few years. I am very positive about going toward the future. We appreciate the changes you guys are making. Sometimes it is hard, but we apprecaite it. (Spontaneous clapping from the audience.) Question: Posting on the NUG is good, but we need a posting in a place somewhere more permanent. If you identify a problem, I suggest that you ask for a workaround. You will be deluged (with responses from developers). We would love to contribute to this effort. I use them (workarounds), and there is no reason to hide them. (Spontaneous clapping from the audience.) JPR: Yes, most of the workarounds are found by (4D) progrmamers (rather than ACI). In the US, you report busg and workarounds. In France, they don't report the bugs or they find a workaround (and don't tell anyone else). We will post the workarounds. [Editor's note: Apparently in France the 4D developer community likes to keep their workarounds to themselves.] Question: Regarding the packaging, and what you get out of the box. The web site doesn't create a positive expression about ACI or the developerss. Compared to other database (tool) developers, ACI lacks (web presence). Regarding a bug list, why not put it in a searchable v6 database on the web? (Spontaneous clapping) Bruce: We are working on a complete redesign of the page. Hopefully you will see that in the coming months. Adam Shultz. Recently when I went to UK and called up technical support with my US (partners program identification) number, I was told it was useless. When will we integrate? JPR: This is what I am trying to do. If you are a developer and you are somewhere else (in the world), it should be like American Express (where you can get support anywhere). If you are lost somwhere else (in the world), why not? It is not always possible if it is a distributor (that represents ACI in a particular country). If it is an ACI (subsidiary) like in Germany or Sweden, why not? I am open to these ideas. We are trying to make every developer have the same level of support. Also, we are trying to link (the) technical support (departments throughout the subsidiaries and distributors throughout the world). Tony Ringsmuth: A conference like this gives me confidence, and helps me learn. I would love to see a video of someone demonstrating how to use 4D version 6 forms or internet stuff, something developers could buy. JPR: There are already some videos by third parties? Tony: Not for years. JPR: Don't expect to see a video. [Editor's note: We asked for the mike at this point and told JPR that training like this would be exceptionally valuable and that we suspected that developers that could not attend his classes personally would pay a fair price for a video series. He seemed receptive to this idea, and although we don't recall his exact response, we gather that he is a little bit camera-shy.] Jim Barnet: Please don't forget the Mac users. (Microsoft) Back Office -- what would you recommend for drivers for both Mac and Windows? JPR: What do you mean? Jim: Which driver setup? Which -- Sybase, ORACLE -- do you recommend? JPR: I cannot give you a specific answer. Some drivers are better than others. What I have seen for ODBC is that Mirosoft's is the best driver. For (a) back end (database), if you are looking for fast, consider Sybase; if you are looking for (a) future, consider ORACLE. John Beaulieu: I wanted to mention something about developers losing access to messages that are posted to the 4D-NUG. PDM (John's company) is doing something for the developer community -- we call it Project Monkey, a backend database that scans the lists. Hopefully we will have this up in the next few months. (When it is available) You developers will be able to search it. Mark Cultura: I come from an academic environment. I appreciate interacting with the community collectively. I understand that ACI makes money with servers. I want to stress how important academia is. For example, I am in Microsoft's back yard, and we fight the Mac-PC battle all the time. Microsoft doesn't give good departmental tools. We are convincing -- (Computer Science) department by department -- people to switch. This is the message that gets out to Computer Science divisions. This is very important for your future and for now. Steve Macintosh: (Referring to the snow outside and the general transportation difficulties) Would Bruce consider demoing 4D Airlines since we can't get to the airport? (Laughter from the audience.) Basil Bourque: Will there be a 4D Open for Java? JPR: There is one solution that we haven't put out yet, and one that is out, but it is for Windows only. Todd Freese: With ODBC, do you see this affecting 4D for ORACLE? Pierre: No. We are going to generalize ODBC, but we will maintian the (tools for the) propietary APIs because you aways get the best (performance) results (with them). We are trying to adapt to providing ODBC for a high-level interface, and providing the propriety drivers for a low-level interface. Paul English, introducing himself as a new developer: Will you consider more tutorials for web applications? JPR:Yes, if you use the (tutorial) book (that comes with 4D) it is normally enough. Would you like more training databases? Paul: Nodding his approval. JPR: Okay, I will do it. Tim Klein: I am heartened to see internet seminars and so much academic interest. As you know, there is a lot of LINUX use in the academic world. Are there plans for 4D for LINUX? JPR: I am very happy you asked that. We won't do it berfore version 7. I promised not to say 7, so not before 4D 6 plus 1. [Editor's note: in addition to Bruce Finch exhibiting nervous behavior every time JPR mentioned something about 4D version 7, there was a contingent of conference attendees in the back row of the auditorium that would do "the wave" -- raising and then lowering their hands in successive order, producing a wave effect -- every time version 7 was mentioned. By this time JPR had noticed this, and changed the way he said "version 7" in an attempt to counter-act the enthusiastic attendees.] Vicky Custer: Not to harp on academic issues, but I support our school system that puts 300 students per year in a database course. Professors have no knowledge of 4D. If you want new developers, start with the students. JPR: I completely agree with you. There are in Canada two universities teaching 4D (in their curriculum). I want to organize a summer university for teachers to teach (them about) 4D for free. I don't know how to advertise (this, however). What is the best way to send invitations? Vicky: Get advertising in major magazines. JPR: This is the most expensive (kind). Vicky: This is best way. Or, the Internet works fine. Please just get it into universities. Bruce: We have heard two things at this conference: advertising and education. Question: Will there be a 4D for DEC Alpha? JPR: We have compiled (a special test version of 4D) for (the) Alpha, and you would not want it because it is very slow. It (4D) needs to be (64-bit byte) aligned. (Also,) We have tried a JIT compiler for (Windows) NT for Power PC. You don't want this; it is too slow (when running in the less-than-optimized non-nyte-aligned mode). The new version of 4D, version 6 plus 1 (laughter from the crowd and another wave from the back row) is completely aligned from the beginning. Don't expect something for v6. Mark Yelich: I think we need to end this before Bruce kills JPR (for saying so much about 4D version 7). [Editor's note: With this, the audience stood and clapped for a standing ovation for the ACI contingent, and the conference was over.]
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Pierre LeBlanc's |
[Editor's note: Since we could not attend all the sessions, and since Pierre LeBlanc's sessions contained so much valuable information, we chose to interview him to provide a representative content for the day. These notes are from a telephone interview we conducted with Pierre a few days after the Summit. They represent our paraphrase of what he said; please double-check any facts presetned here before making any business decisions relying upon them.] In morning keynote address, Pierre LeBlanc demonstrated several exciting technologies and made a few important announcements. The first of the new technologoies demonstrated was Automated Solutions Group's Activator, an ActiveX interface to 4D Server. Using Activator, Pierre demonstrated a Microsoft Internet Explorer version 3 "panel" inside a 4D for Windows form, not unlike a plug-in area such as 4D Write or AreaList. The panel had none of the surrounding support structures of the IE3 application; rather, it was merely the window itself. Pierre showed how 4D buttons on the same form could manipulate the panel programmatically using 4D scripts. In essence, using Activator, any ActiveX-compliant application can made to act as if it were a 4D productivity module, including such important applications as MS Word, Project, and Excel. In addition to this rather mind-boggling demonstration, Pierre also mentioned how an ActiveX-compliant FTP server was being implemented as a "faceless" component to 4D Server, as well as an ActiveX-compliant Internet News reader. Pierre went on to explain the current status with 4D and ODBC. He explained that ACI is indeed working on their ODBC driver for 4D Server, and that it was going to be available soon, after it completes a satisfactory beta test period. He went on to say that interested parties who wanted to experiment with the driver today could obtain it by contacting him directly via e-mail at pleblanc@acius.com. There are some problems with implementing ODBC on the MacOS, Pierre said. Of the two components of ODBC on the client side, the ODBC driver and the ODBC driver manager, one of them, the oDBC driver manager, has had its support dropped by the manufacturer. Although still present on Apple's development CDs, the MacOS ODBC driver manager is no longer being supported by Visigenix. ACI is looking at other driver managers for the Mac, notably the one from Intersolv, but with Visigenix as the sole licensed manufacturer, ACI is unsure of the status of Intersolv's drivers. They will keep the developers posted of new events. Lastly, Pierre demonstrated the new version of 4D Write. Many improvements have been made, including draggable toolsbars, no limitation on document size, support for RTF and HTML, splittable horizontal and vertical panes, better headers and footers, better picture support, storing a picture as a reference as with the 4D picture library instead of replication, better color support including setting foreground color, background color, and strike color, and better page preview support, including resizing using sliders and the ability to resize the headers and footer graphically. Pierre also explained that 4D Write as well as all the other productivity modules were being re-written using a common framework, part of which will be made available to plug-in developers. Pierre did not mention a ship date, explaining rather that this was a sneak preview. In his afternoon session, Pierre explored clever and unconventional connectivity methods, including connecting to a remote database when the user is not on-line: transactions via e-mail. Using 4D with either an SMTP server or the Microsoft Outlook mailbox as manipulated with another new ASG technology Basic4D, Pierre showed how remote transactions could be completely supported by the familiar and always-available e-mail services. Pierre mentioned that although he could not make the utilized plug-ins available, interested parties who wanted a copy of his demo database could obtain it by contacting him via e-mnail at the address mentioned above. [Editor's note: The ASG product Pierre used, Basic4D, is as stunning as the previously mentiuoned new ASG product Activator. Essentially, Basic4D implements a complete Visual Basic for Applications environment inside 4D for Windows. Thus, programmatic manipulation of the Microsoft Windows environment is possible from 4D. This is similar, but far more robust, than the AppleScript manipulation availble on the Mac, and allows 4D developers to build some uniquely advanced solutions.] | |||