InDetail

InDetail Paper by Bloor Author David NorfolkPublish date March 2016

Uniface 9.7 – classic Uniface for existing Uniface users, and more...

“Uniface 9.7 probably represents the last

incarnation of the “classic” client/server Uniface

Development Environment, while providing new

Mobile functionality and foreshadowing some of the

Uniface 10 changes.

”Author David Norfolk

3 A Bloor InDetail Paper

niface is, in effect, a new company, spun out of and privatised from Compuware

in early 2014. The product is a highly productive “low code” development platform, with a long history and many large, loyal, customers. Uniface has significantly modernised its platform with Uniface 10 but it has always allowed its customers to move to new technology at their own pace. Uniface 9.7, the subject of this paper, targets both existing customers, often with client/server applications, who need to produce modern applications, but who aren't yet ready to move to Uniface 10; and new customers who wish to develop and deploy mobile, web and client server applications. Not all of these capabilities are currently available in Uniface 10.

This document is intended for managers and Uniface users in existing Uniface customer organisations, who understand Uniface 9 and are planning their future with Uniface. It will be of value to Uniface technicians too, but is not intended as a technical manual.

Fast facts Uniface is now completely divorced from Compuware technically; it has been financially and organisationally separate for some time, but there were a few references deep in the product, which have been removed in Uniface 9.7 – which represents Uniface's commitment to meeting the needs of its current customers with an extensive investment in “classic” Uniface technology. For instance, by allowing its major VARS to give the applications they sell a modern appearance without making them break open their existing code; whilst also giving them a comparatively painless path on to Uniface 10. Uniface 9.7 does, however, provide significant new Mobile and HTML5 capabilities.

Executive summaryKey findingsIn the opinion of Bloor Research, the following represent the key facts of which prospective users should be aware. Uniface 9.7 probably represents the last incarnation of the “classic” client/server Uniface Development Environment, while providing new Mobile functionality and foreshadowing some of the Uniface 10 changes:

• Uniface 9.7 brings forward some of the hybrid (web application and browser) Mobile features of Uniface 10, (in particular, useful off-line working capabilities), although it doesn't yet include the automatic generation of installable apps (planned for an update to Uniface 9.7);

• It has been modernised so as to reduce barriers to its use in a modern environment; it now has the “look” of a modern application development platform, with Uniface 9 underneath; while Uniface 10 has both the “look” and the “feel” (i.e., the technology underpinnings) as well;

• It is moving towards the use of HTML5 instead of the DOJO JavaScript toolkit for web applications, although DOJO is still there as an option for legacy purposes;

• Further client server capabilities are now available for those customers still deploying applications on Windows, including support and enhancements specifically for Windows 10.

• Various aspects of the Uniface environment, such as its licensing, the removal of the (previously discontinued) Uniface Flow product, etc., have been tidied up in preparation for the eventual move to Uniface 10;

• All links to Compuware (in the registry for example) should now have been removed;

U

“This document is intended for managers

and Uniface users in existing Uniface

customer organisations, who understand

Uniface 9 and are planning their future

with Uniface.

”

© 2016 Bloor 4

• Distribution as structured “Uniface archives” (UAR) instead of a “whole bunch of files” is now possible, and recommended;

• In general, the Uniface 9.7 modernisations and changes are (with the exception of the dropping of Uniface FLOW) optional, and (with the exception of the new start screen) customers can continue to use “classic Uniface” if they want to (and have some control over the look and feel of its modernisations). This will not be the case with Uniface 10, which does not have a “classic Uniface” switch.

The bottom lineUniface 9.7 is the final landing place for Uniface 9 customers and provides new client server features and a modern appearance, together with useful new functionality for Mobile and HTML5 apps. It gives customers a chance to acclimatise to some of the Uniface 10 innovations while leaving them the option to work the way they always have done with Uniface in the past. It is an important part of Uniface's plans for moving its customers comparatively painlessly to Uniface 10 at their own pace – while maintaining its fine reputation for not abandoning its customers when technology changes.

In Bloor's opinion, Uniface has managed the 9.7 release pretty well, although (if Uniface 10, with all Uniface functionality, had been available a little faster), Uniface 9.6 could have served a similar role. Still, Uniface 9.7 confirms Unifaces' commitment to its existing customers and their needs, and provides useful additional capability. Our only concern is that Uniface 9.7 might prove so attractive that the perceived need for Uniface 10 amongst existing customers declines; but Uniface is well aware of this issue and the need to find and promote compelling reasons to upgrade to Uniface 10. Uniface is also keen to point out that it is well experienced with moving customers from one major version to another.

“It is an important part of Uniface’s plans for moving its customers comparatively painlessly to Uniface 10 at their own pace – while maintaining its fine reputation for not abandoning its customers when technology changes.

”

5 A Bloor InDetail Paper

Uniface 9.7ackground to the implementation of Uniface 9.7

Uniface 10 is the way forward for Uniface and will offer a completely modern IDE experience; however, it is currently positioned as a preview release, only for new customers/applications and only for Web applications. Uniface has not abandoned its existing Uniface 9 client/server customers, who provide much of its revenues and it originally planned to introduce new Uniface Mobile capabilities for them in stages, starting with Uniface Mobile (based on Uniface 9.6) and culminating with a complete Mobile capability in Uniface 10. The original roadmap was:

1. The provision of visually stunning websites on mobile devices for Uniface 9;

2. A facility for building native (installable) apps for Android and iOS appstores;

3. Offline capabilities, in Uniface 10.

This roadmap has now been revisited in the context of feedback from customers. Features enabling the delivery of visually stunning websites is continuing (delivery in 9.7.01); automatic delivery of native apps is not here yet (you can build them individually, of course; and there is a “previewer” installable app, to enable testing of mobile solutions based on conversion of existing apps). However, offline capabilities are being brought forward, which doesn't surprise Bloor (as we see this as essential for practical business applications), and will be delivered in a later point release of Uniface 9.7, which is being finalised for an early 2016 delivery.

Uniface has also taken the opportunity to tidy up Uniface 9, so all references to Compuware (in the Registry, for example) have now been removed; and licensing is being rationalised (a third-party licensing server is being considered, for the future). Distribution of the Uniface Development Environment and supporting applications will now be (optionally) as Uniface Archives – high-level assemblies of both Uniface and non-Uniface application objects into compressed deployment

archives, for deployment in runtime environments (this is already possible for Uniface applications).

Uniface 9 customers should not see the main driver for Uniface 9.7 as being to make the migration to Uniface 10. Fulfilling previous commitments, the move to Uniface 10 will be supported from Uniface 9.6 and Uniface 9.7, and will be as painless as possible for existing Uniface customers – but when, and only when, they want to make the move.

Uniface platform currencyUniface runs primarily on Windows and Linux platforms, although there is continued support for legacy platforms such as IBM iSeries and UNIX amongst others.

Uniface 9.7 supports Windows 10 and current versions of Oracle and SQLServer. From Uniface 9.6, Uniface ships with SQLite database, which it considers strategic and open, instead of SolidDB, which was previously bundled. It sees Oracle and SQLServer as the strategic databases for a majority of its key customers and will always endeavour to maintain currency for these as releases appear; after these come a large selection of additional databases including Sybase, Informix, DB2 and MySQL. Uniface 9.7 delivers support for two additional databases which have not been supported in previous releases: PostgreSQL, which provides an enterprise capable open source database option; and SAP Hana, which it thinks is gathering momentum as a viable alternative to the high end Oracle database offerings.

Uniface 9.7 was released in early October 2015 and supports mobile, web and client server applications (Uniface's hybrid approach to mobile apps depends on a web app).

Uniface 9.7 architectureThe current Uniface 9 architecture, still used in Uniface 9.7, follows a conventional 3-tier client/server model, with strong separation between business logic, data structures and presentation logic. To a large extent, this has evolved rather than been built from scratch for Uniface 9.7, but Uniface has a very disciplined

“Fulfilling previous commitments, the move

to Uniface 10 will be supported from Uniface 9.6 and Uniface 9.7, and

will be as painless as possible for existing Uniface customers –

but when, and only when, they want to

make the move.

”

B

© 2016 Bloor 6

approach to separating the layers. Uniface 9.7, for example, can give legacy Uniface applications a significantly modernised appearance and this can be achieved without “breaking” the legacy code that its VAR customers may depend on in their own products. Similarly, 3rd party environments can usually be integrated with Uniface environments without the need to change any underlying Uniface business logic code.

Uniface 9.7 release themes One of the intentions behind Uniface 9.7 is to modernise its appearance (in response to requests from VAR customers who want to sell products written in Uniface competitively, in a modern marketplace) and to provide an (optional) opportunity to explore some of the techniques and capabilities (especially in the Mobile arena) that will be part of the Uniface 10 mainstream.

There are 5 functional themes to the Uniface 9.7 release, in addition to providing currency with, e.g., Windows 10:

• Web application innovation;

• The provision of rich mobile capabilities;

• Improving integration with third party applications and business automation platforms generally;

• Enhancements to the Uniface GUI;

• Modernisation of the appearance and usability of the Uniface 9 Development Environment (UDE) in preparation foe the more fundamental changes in the Uniface 10 IDE.

Theme: Web application innovationImproved HTML5 supportUniface has always used its “dynamic server page” (DSP) technology behind its web applications. Version 9.7, however, introduces the possibility of using HTML5 templates to modernise applications at the UI level. The use of these is optional but they underline the intent to be modern that underlies Uniface version 9.7. The HTML5 templates in Uniface 9.7 include headers/footers and inner content sections (as Uniface data roles) that work as expected in modern web applications, across different form factors.

Similarly, Uniface has used DOJO for some time, because (at the time) the DOJO

Javascript toolkit was richer than HTML. But that's less true today, with HTML5 – which is what people expect these days, too. So, now Uniface 9.7 uses HTML5 widgets by default, HTML5 attributes are supported, and there are corresponding Uniface code, JavaScript and HTML templates.

Nevertheless, DOJO is still there if you want it, with the DOJO mapping commented out (although all DOJO widgets do have HTML5 alternatives). This seems to exemplify Unifaces' general approach with this release: it lets established Uniface 9 customers experiment with the modern approaches that will feature in Uniface 10; but the old ways are still available.

Uniface seems very happy with using HTML5; it's becoming very robust in the browser; alternate plug-in technologies are becoming increasingly frowned on and Javascript not seen as good as “native” approaches (HTML5 isn't really native, but it is performant and flexible enough). Uniface exploits the latest HTML5 error-handling capabilities, which are built into modern browsers.

Improved error handlingError handling in general, in Uniface web applications, has been tidied up – made better structured. There is now declarative syntax checking in salutation details, and field errors can be handled as bound elements – user choices, for users who want more error handling than is built into the browser.

This is the same syntax validation as was available on DOJO widgets, with the error now placed into the bound element, and with various error styles (e.g., highlighted) available. On the client side, there is a WebTrigger OnSyntaxError, which does what the name suggests and should be useful.

This is all related, we'd suggest, to making the data itself and its semantics more robust: entities (roughly, database tables) and occurrences (roughly, database rows) now have class properties and formatting on the server is now optional. Users can also now choose to use JSON typed data, which is now an internal data format (with no format/de-format overheads).

“One of the intentions behind Uniface 9.7 is to modernise its appearance and to provide an (optional) opportunity to explore some of the techniques and capabilities (especially in the Mobile arena) that will be part of the Uniface 10 mainstream.

”

7 A Bloor InDetail Paper

PromisesJavascript Promises (see http://javascriptplayground.com/blog/2015/02/promises) are increasingly being recommended for use in Uniface applications in order to simplify asynchronous coding. A promise is either completed or rejected, and the application responds appropriately. In other words, a piece of asynchronous logic involving a promise is executed and either succeeds or fails – there is no complex chain of calls and error messages to pass back and process, and no disconcerting error messages on the user’s screen – the promise was either delivered or broken, and processing continues. What this means is better, more readable, code with fewer “birds nests”; and we note that there is also a JavaScript API for labels, which should also help with readability, if used sensibly.

Nevertheless, using Promises for smoother application flow from the user’s point of view does have consequences for the programmer, who has to use a “catch” function to see the actual error messages produced and act on them, if necessary. This is supported in Uniface 9.7.

Theme: The provision of rich mobile capabilitiesUniface sees mobile as a modernisation story; it is possible to add a mobile channel to an existing application with minimal impact on existing business logic. This is covered in more detail in our paper on Uniface Mobile (http://www.bloorresearch.com/research/indetail/uniface-for-high-productivity-mobile-development/).

With Uniface 9.7, Uniface has fixed some technical limitations that were causing problems. Thus, there is new support for very large binary files, which facilitate integration with, e.g., Dropbox and Google Drive; and the old 10Mb parameter limit is now recognised as too restrictive and has been increased. This allows for GET requests to have very long URLs. RESTful information can be supplied by contract.

Uniface is currently working on build server technology, which will be delivered in future releases, and it is integrating with Microsoft’s Hockey App (http://hockeyapp.net/features/). According to Uniface, “we are using this technology internally to distribute our test applications – it is also

a system that the build service we are working to integrate with can publish to directly”.

Uniface has already largely delivered on its road-map promises for the provision of attractive web applications. For example, one Dutch transport system has successfully migrated its installable journey planning mobile app to a web app accessed from the browser. It will deliver on its promises for delivering automatically installable applications soon, probably in point release 9.7.02 (you can write installable apps now, of course, but you need to validate them individually against appstore validation requirements).

There is now an installable “preview” IoS or Android app, which is integrated with the UDE (Uniface Development Environment) and provides a simulation of what a mobile conversion of an existing application will look like. It’s a real app which works, but is generalised; it provides access to everything in a mobile device, whether you need it or not. In essentials, this provides a low barrier to mobile modernisation testing for developers; any missing parts of a mobile app environment can be simulated quickly. You could even use the preview app to implement part of a real application, but a proper app would be more specific to a particular business process, and easier to maintain and more secure (providing access to more capabilities than a business process actually needs is poor governance).

Offline processing is achieved using JavaScript to access the Uniface data centric API. This allows for a hierarchical data structure to be accessed and modified; the styling to be set and updated; and also offers the ability to call operations in the current or other component instances either locally in the browser or back on the server.

Theme: Improving integration with third party applications and business automation platforms generallyIn Bloor's opinion, Uniface is aiming to support the emerging approach of using a technology-agnostic automation manager for mobile process support. It gives mobile application designers the FREEDOM (this is a key trend identified by Bloor) to make what seem, to them, to be good design decisions, that are not predefined by

“There is now an installable “preview”

IoS or Android app, which is integrated

with the UDE (Uniface Development

Environment) and provides a simulation

of what a mobile conversion of an

existing application will look like.

”

© 2016 Bloor 8

Uniface, and which fit the business needs or culture of a particular organisation. This means that one can choose between, for example:

• a single mobile app which provides a menu covering all requirements;

• or a “broker” which manages a suite of mono-functional apps.

DSP runtime changes.The Uniface runtime is Uniface.js. This has been streamlined and can now be included in non-Uniface HTML pages, and accessed through its JavaScript API. You load it from a content server; its location is defined in a configuration file and you can also now configure the load order for JavaScript and CSS.

Internal restructuringSignificant internal restructuring of Uniface really belongs in the Uniface 10 upgrade of the whole product. Nevertheless, some changes to the DSP runtime have been made, in order to anticipate future requirements for the support of mobile applications and the need to minimise network traffic. In particular, Uniface sees a need to accommodate Javascript runtimes and lightweight APIs in intelligent “things” in IoT scenarios.

This is part of a general trend that Uniface sees, where a development platform must allow developers the FREEDOM to use and exploit 3rd party frameworks. This is really all about making Uniface web applications “play nicely” with the rest of the business; organisations will no longer accept technology-based automation silos.

What this means, in the first place, is that internal Uniface configuration information has been split from customer-facing configuration. This is partly to stop users playing with internal stuff they don’t understand and causing themselves problems (“if it’'s in an INI file, how hard can it be?”) and partly so that Uniface can be made user-configurable at the cosmetic level – you can modernise an app without breaking open the code.

This makes Uniface more controllable and flexible, so that it can be configured to fit into a bigger picture without the risk of breaking its business logic, using tidied-up Uniface assignment files. The old-style Uniface configuration files still work in Uniface 9.7, for now but, going

forwards, Uniface mustn’t get in the way of giving organisations the FREEDOM to make any of their applications look pretty or more modern, using third-party add-ons, if necessary.

Theme: Enhancements to the Uniface GUIUniface aims at providing applications written in Uniface 9.7 with a modern Windows 10 look and feel. Its current approach to the modernisation of Uniface application GUIs is to exploit its strong separation between business logic and the presentation layer so that configuration processes can modernise screen appearance without breaking generated code. It doesn’t want to break its VARs’ applications even if they are using “undocumented” or deprecated features of Uniface. We think that this is fine, as the use of deprecated functionality is reported when Uniface components are compiled, but we would like to see something that highlights potential issues with the use of undocumented features by developers; they’ll have to be addressed sooner or later. Uniface points out that it does offer a migration service that will produce a report documenting the use of deprecated functions and patterns known to cause issues (there is a second level to the service that will update customer application to the alternative updated options).

Uniface has been influenced by advice from Forrester, to the effect that Windows 10 may well provide a new lease of life for client/server applications, using the Windows 10 Tablet OS to provide clients with a thoroughly modern UI, on a range of devices. This rather implies that implementing security at the application level is important, as it will be too hard to rely on all possible clients being secure.

It now thinks that various government “pure open source” initiatives are fading away. Uniface can, however, support a pure Linux GUI, by making use of its Uniface Anywhere technology (which was once known as “Just in Time”).

Uniface takes the testing of its application GUIs very seriously. It uses Ranorex (http://www.ranorex.com/) itself, internally, but is firmly committed to being tool-agnostic. It supports the MSAA interface for 3rd party testing tools, which is now implemented as part of Microsoft UI Automation (https://msdn.microsoft.com/

“This is really all about making Uniface web applications “play nicely” with the rest of the business; organisations will no longer accept technology-based automation silos.

”

9 A Bloor InDetail Paper

en-us/library/ms788733.aspx). This was originally designed for Accessibility testing but provides the necessary hooks for use by GUI testing tools in general.

Accessibility for the “differently abled” is itself still important, as many Uniface customers develop for environments where it is a requirement. According to Uniface, this is mainly a client-server application issue, in practice, as browser applications and so on designed using good practice usually support W3C web accessibility (WAI) standards – http://www.w3.org/standards/webdesign/accessibility. Uniface says that “we went through a process of testing/verifying Uniface against the 508 accessibility standards (a US standard) a good few years ago now (we were adequate but there was room for improvement). Since then, we have worked on the GUI layer in Uniface 9.6 and 9.7, and used the 64 bit Windows project as an opportunity for a major clean up. So, we think Accessibility has improved significantly, but we’ve not repeated the 508 compliance checks, and we wouldn’t unless we had a specific reason to (typically, this would be an accessibility compliance issue raised by a customer)”.

Theme: Modernisation of the Uniface 9 UDE in preparation for the Uniface 10 IDE.The Uniface Development Environment (UDE) becomes a conventional IDE, similar to any other developers’ IDEs, in Uniface 10. For now, Uniface 9.7 points you in the right direction for a move to Uniface 10. It provides further modernisation over the Uniface 9.6 UDE and aims to provide the “look” (although not the “feel”) of Uniface 10. What developers will notice immediately is that the UDE screens (see Figure 1) are more supportive now and encourage them to think in terms of defining application model properties – and they are now less grey than they used to be.

In Uniface 9.7, the “new way” is often the UDE default, but you can usually still use the old ways; in Uniface 10, you won't have a choice. So, distribution is now, optionally, as UARs (Uniface Archives) instead of as “a whole bunch of files” and Uniface 9.7 is now completely unplugged from the Compuware Registry. One area where one doesn't get a choice is the use of Uniface FLOW, which has now gone entirely.

DifferentiatorsUniface 9.7 is still differentiated by Uniface's support for customers moving to new technologies at their own pace. It is distinguished from many other conventional (code-based) development environments by its concentration on a business modelling approach, developing a visual model and executing the model (through the use of templates), leading to high productivity in delivering automated business outcomes.

It is distinguished from high-productivity PaaS visual modelling approaches appearing these days, such as Mendix, by not being “cloud native”; and from, say, OutSystems Platform by neither being cloud-based nor a generator of conventional code. However, it does have a strong history of providing scalable and resilient business applications with extremely high productivity and has a loyal customer-base.

Figure 1 – The Uniface 9.7 UDE Start Page

© 2016 Bloor 10

“According to Uniface, MidlandHR has adopted a continuous build and release approach, and picks up Uniface innovations as they happen. This makes it an Agile exemplar in the Uniface world and the type of customer Uniface concentrates on.

”

ince this report is being written before the release of Uniface 9.7, we cannot report an actual

Use Case story. However, MidlandHR exemplifies the type of customer that Uniface is targeting with Uniface 9.7.

Use Case: Agile software product, written using Uniface MidlandHR’s flagship product iTrent needs to keep abreast of changing technology and user expectations while focusing effort on business requirements, not IT.

Actor: Agile software VAR, MidlandHR

Scope: UK’s largest independent HR & Payroll solutions provider, which sees itself as harnessing technological innovation to help its customers weather the downturn.

MidlandHR’s iTrent product needs to cope with frequent legislative and tax changes, with consequent compliance implications. Its developers need to understand and implement these changes without being distracted by technology changes – although its customers may well switch to other applications if iTrent is seen to be falling behind the state-of-the-art.

MidlandHR uses Uniface because it facilitates:

• Keeping iTrent both up-to-the-minute and affordable;

• Interoperability through Uniface’s flexible and easy-to-use Web Services support;

• A customer choice between cloud services or on-premise deployment of iTrent (Uniface is not a “cloud native” application but is entirely able to support Cloud-hosted deployment)

• Providing iTrent with a modern “look and feel”;

• The use of continuous quality and performance improvement.

Customer use casesAccording to Uniface, MidlandHR has adopted a continuous build and release approach, and picks up Uniface innovations as they happen. This makes it an Agile exemplar in the Uniface world and the type of customer Uniface concentrates on, because it knows it will get immediate feedback of real requirements from such a customer.

Lawrence Knowles, Vice Chairman, Technology MidlandHR, claims that, “with Uniface, we can take advantage of new technological advances without having to employ a bunch of technologists. Uniface takes care of that for us, so that we can focus on keeping our HR functionality ahead of the market.” (see http://www.uniface.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/cs-midland-hr.pdf).

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11 A Bloor InDetail Paper

niface’s backgroundUniface was originally founded in the Netherlands, in 1984,

by its first CEO, Bodo Douqué, and aimed at professional developers of high-performance management information systems. Since then it has belonged to Compuware but, since 2014, it is now a private company, owned by Marlin Equity Partners

Historically, Uniface has good customer retention and 60% of Uniface’s revenue is EMEA-based. Uniface 9 already has many loyal customers; the majority are VARs, who have to keep their customers happy and, accordingly, put pressure on Uniface to keep up-to-date in appearance, as well as capability.

The global Uniface community site, at http://uniface.info or http://unifaceinfo.com/, is a central point for the various Uniface users around the globe. From this site you can reach online video and conventional support for Uniface. Online training is available on the Uniface University site. Uniface also maintains a presence on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter and this seems to be a strategic part of the Uniface vision.

Uniface customersUniface currently (2014) has about 1,600 customers; and 250 partners and resellers – who are also treated as customers. Uniface is currently building a strong global partner organisation, with local partners that want new customers themselves – and which have local knowledge and networks in places like China and South America. There is a long list of Uniface customer case studies at http://www.uniface.com/customer-stories/.

Customers trade with Uniface because, firstly, it is far more productive of business outcomes than conventional development environments such as Java (Eclipse) or .NET (Visual Studio). Secondly, Uniface has a strong reputation for supporting its customers and bringing them up-to-date with the latest technologies, such as Mobile, at their own pace.

Uniface BVUniface CompetitionUniface will face strong competition in the mobile space from new high productivity PaaS vendors who have grown up with Mobile and modern development approaches. However, such competitors may not always have its established longevity, nor its demonstrated capability for the support for, and integration with, enterprise back-end systems.

PartnersUniface Partners are an essential part of Uniface’s new go-to-market strategy, as exemplified in its PartnersUnited Program. It has seen a 13.8% growth in Application Partners business in its 2014 financial year and it has, it says, improved its working relationships with its key partners and is making new commercial opportunities for its VAR partners.

Global partners include VBT (Turkey); Wizrom (Romania); Everest Computers (UAE & Dubai); Mobilne (Croatia); Techshire and TCS (India); ONE1 (Israel); Hongyi (China), Mainsoft (Brazil, Peru, Chile); Softline (Russia); FCS (Japan); DW Software (Mexico). They obviously give Uniface a global reach and access to local business networks, without Uniface itself having to build a presence in each country. This approach also helps to insulate Uniface from any political issues with, for example, doing business with an EU company in Russia. Since Mobile is a primary route to banking in some areas of the world, this focus on global partners with their own local customer networks and relationships should open opportunities for its new Mobile capabilities.

Uniface is also, now that it is independent of Compuware, actively rebuilding its Channel.

Financial informationUniface is owned by Marlin Equity Partners (MEP), which is a global private equity firm operating throughout North America and Europe. Since 2005, it has completed over 70 acquisitions and currently has over $2.6 billion of committed capital from its blue chip institutional investor base. Its other successful growth acquisitions have achieved from 25% to over 400% growth under MEP.

Current Issues In the context of Mobile development, Uniface has to make a name for itself and mustn’t let itself fall behind the competition. Its staged approach seems likely to help it address this and provide immediate support for its existing customers; but it will need to be careful that the availability of Uniface 9.7 doesn't “steal Version 10’s thunder” and unduly slow the migration of customers to Version 10. Uniface, however, seems well aware of this potential issue.

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© 2016 Bloor 12

loor thinks that Uniface 9.7, despite its long history, is still a productive and reasonably

modern development environment (note that Uniface 10 will offer a fully up-to-date IDE).

It brings forward some of the hybrid (web application and browser) Mobile features of Uniface 10, (in particular, useful off-line working capabilities), but doesn’t yet generate installable apps (planned for a Uniface 9.7 update). Its interface has been modernised so as to reduce barriers to its use in a modern environment.

Significantly, it is moving towards the use of HTML5 web applications and new

Summary

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FURTHER INFORMATION Further information is available from www.BloorResearch.com/update/2284

client server capabilities are available (including Widows 10 support) and the product has been tidied up for an eventual migration to Uniface 10. However, most of the new features of Uniface 9.7 are optional, and customers can continue working in the way they are used to, if they want to.

Bloor believes that Uniface is managing the modernisation of Uniface well, although it is facing increasing competition from comparatively recent high-productivity PaaS development environments – which, of course, don’t have Uniface’s long provenance in providing a customer-focused service.

“Bloor believes that Uniface is managing the modernisation of Uniface well, although it is facing increasing competition from comparatively recent high-productivity PaaS development environments.

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13 A Bloor InDetail Paper

About the authorDAVID NORFOLK Practice Leader / Development and Governance

His early career involved working in database administration (DBA) and operations research for the Australian Public Service in Canberra. David then returned to his UK birthplace (1982) where he worked for Bank of America and Swiss Bank Corporation, at various times holding positions in DBA, systems development method and standards, internal control, network management, technology risk and even PC support. He was instrumental in introducing a formal systems development process for the Bank of America Global Banking product in Croydon.

In 1992 he started a new career as a professional writer and analyst. Since then he has written for many major computer magazines and various specialist titles around the world. He helped plan, document and photograph the CMMI Made Practical conference at the IoD, London in 2005 and has written many industry white papers and research reports including: IT Governance (for Thorogood), Online Banking (for FT Business Reports), Developing a Network Computing Strategy and Corporate Desktop Services (for Business Intelligence), the Business Implications of Adopting Object Technology (for Elan Publishing).

He has his own company, David Rhys Enterprises Ltd, which he runs from his home in Chippenham, where his spare moments (if any) are spent on photography, sailing and listening to music.

avid Norfolk first became interested in computers and programming quality in the

1970s, working in the Research School of Chemistry at the Australian National University. Here he discovered that computers could deliver misleading answers, even when programmed by very clever people, and was taught to program in FORTRAN. His ongoing interest in all things related to development has culminated in his joining Bloor in 2007 and taking on the development brief.

Development here refers especially to automated systems development. This covers technology including acronym-driven tools such as: Application Lifecycle Management (ALM), Integrated Development Environments (IDE), Model Driven Architecture (MDA), automated data analysis tools and metadata repositories, requirements modelling tools and so on. It also covers the processes behind them and the people issues associated with implementing them. Of particular interest is organisational maturity as a prerequisite for implementing effective (measured) process and ITIL (v3) as a framework for automated service delivery.

David is a past co-editor (and co-owner) of Application Development Advisor and associate editor for the launch of Register Developer, and is currently executive editor for GEE’s “IT Policies and Procedures” product. He has an honours degree in Chemistry and is a Chartered IT Professional, has a somewhat rusty NetWare 5 CNE certification and is a full Member of the British Computer Society (where he is on the committee of the Configuration Management Specialist Group).

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