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Alpha Software's Richard Rabins on Let's Talk Computers| | Alpha Software's Richard Rabins on Let's Talk Computers
“Why Businesses Now Want to Create Their Own Applications”
Complete Transcript of Richard Rabins – Alpha Five Version 8
on Let’s Talk Computers
Host Alan Ashendorf
November 10 2007
Alan: All businesses run on information and data – lots and lots of data! Businesses must have reliable applications to process all this data. Now, we are seeing where more businesses want to create their own applications to process their data. What is driving this trend? Our guest, today is Richard Rabins, Co-Chairman of Alpha Software. Welcome back to Let’s Talk computers, Richard.
Richard: It’s great to be back with you, Alan.
Alan: In the past, a business could only rely on a commercial, off-the-shelf application to run their business with applications written in C++ or .NET, because this was the only type of application, available. Nowadays, there are other options and running commercial applications may not be the best fit for their business, anymore.
Richard: I think you have raised a really fundamental and interesting question. The issue is that in many cases, off-the-shelf applications don’t really cut it [because they are "off-the-shelf."]. If you look at the economy, today, for every business that you run into and you ask the owner, “What is it that would explain your success?” They would give you some explanation that defines what is unique about them. They would say, “We’re the only manufacturer in the North East who can produce glass this way’, or ‘we offer this kind of special service.”
Successful businesses are often defined by their uniqueness. So, what that really means is that when it comes to the information needs of these businesses, that generally looks for something is “custom”, not off the shelf.
Alan: It is the applications that run the day-to-day business – in the past, most businesses needed the speed of the commercial software as well as only those types of applications could take care of the massive data flow.
Richard: What’s happening now is that software is getting significantly more innovative and that smaller businesses or departments of smaller companies are able to produce custom-software that can be based on either small data sets or SQL Back-end databases, so you can end up with, in many cases the best of both worlds. The option of using industrial-strength back end database engines – things like SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, etc. that are front-end tools that you get with Alpha Five which let people build really highly customized applications, quickly and relatively easily.
That’s essentially one of the most exciting things that we believe is happening when it comes to databases. It’s sort of the empowerment of businesses to have very powerful solutions, very fast solutions, with the ability to develop the solutions quickly and at low cost
Alan: Each business is slightly different from their competitor. That’s what makes the business succeed or not succeed. If you have a business that using a canned package and now they want to have a feature added to it and they have to go back to the company that produced the software, there’s no incentive for the company to add that feature for that one company, anymore, is there?
Richard: That’s exactly right. If you think about it, businesses are faced with the fundamental choice - “Do you change your business to accommodate some off-the-shelf package or do you have the software accommodate your business?”
Obviously, the desirable answer for a company is not to change the way you operate, because that’s the optimal issue of secret source and when you use your off-the-shelf packages – as you say, it’s not really realistic to expect a software company to make a change that may only be applicable to you. But for you, that change is critical and could be life or death.
Alan: Then what happens is the business turns the other direction and uses software packages like Excel or Access, that allow a lot of customization, but they really don’t allow it to grow to meet the company’s needs, so you have a lot of little bitty applications.
Richard: That’s exactly right. Even small businesses, (and if you speak to the owners), one of the worst things that can happen is that it is the information system that is in place, cannot grow). Then that in fact, could be a reason why the company is fundamentally not able to grow.
That’s why with the most recent release of Alpha Five, and our ability to work with SQL Back-ends, allow you to end up with this very open system, where the business has the confidence that software is easily customizable for their needs and also has a huge growth potential. It’s worth noting the power some of the SQL back ends have and how the Software, such as Alpha Five is implemented.
Some of your listeners have heard the term, “client-server”; this was an architecture that was designed and has been in use for enterprises for many years. Essentially, what it’s all about is letting the server or often the database engine, where the data, itself, sits do most of the work – which is separate from the client, which and is what where the application is typically running and is what the end user sees.
It’s important to provide “scalability” to adopt a true client-server model, where for things like “sorting” and “searching”. Heavy database work is done at the server and then the results are sent to the client. We’ve implemented a true client-server model in Alpha Five.
Alan: Any kind of application that you build is going to have to be fast because the user who’s sitting in front of the screen has a form and if this form was not designed for maximum efficiency and effectiveness, the user is not going to use it and if you’re designing your own forms, you need the tools to design your form. This is where Alpha Five, Version 8 really shines because your Form Design tools are really easy to use.
Richard: You’ve hit on something that is really fundamental to computing; it’s performance. I think everybody who might be listening and who’s ever used a computer understands. The most frustrating thing that can possibly happen to a user is if the machine doesn’t give you results quickly and doesn’t perform. It’s going to frustrate you; it’s going to impede productivity.
That’s why the design emphasis is very important. I’ll give you an example. If you commit to Alpha Five to a SQL Back end and you’ve got say, 100,000 records, you could have a form and request a sort from that form and get the results in 1 or 2 seconds.
The reason for that is that you are actually instructing the SQL Back-end to perform the sort, as opposed to some of our competitors who actually have been relegated down to the client and expect to the sort to happen at the client – in which case, the user could be waiting minutes for the results. So, performance really is what it’s all about.
Alan: In order to get that performance, you have to design form so that end-users feel comfortable using those forms. Forms should be designed by end-users; they should not be designed by programmers – because a programmer, he just likes a big, long list box so that you can go pick something and type directly into a database. Users cannot and should not do that. They need to have things like “form validation”. How does that Alpha Five allow us to set up say, a form with a lot of validation in it?
Richard: There are two answers to that question. One thing that you’re referring to is “layout controls”, things like drop-downs, radio buttons and tree controls – things that are very visual and easy for the user to understand, when they are looking at a form.
The other part that is equally important is, that and one of the things that differentiates a database from spreadsheets, is their ability to have data be input, accurately and rapidly. You talked about a section that we have in Alpha, which we call “field rules”, which relates to “look-up tables”. So, for example, if you fill in a form, let’s say it’s an order form for a customer and you’re on the form with the customer. You may have different categories of customers, such as government users, corporate users, and educational users.
They may have very different price sheets for your product. You want the system to be very efficient, so one of the questions you would know, either from previous history or from talking to the customer, what category they are in and then as you go into the price list – the price list automatically would bring up the correct price for that kind of customer.
The beauty of Alpha Five is that this level of control is all done without having to write code, which makes the system much easier to use. That’s a practical example of when done right, how a database can add a lot of efficiency to a company.
Alan: If this is written in Visual Basic or .NET, or even C++, you have to write a ton of code in order to get that level of validation that you’re talking about. End-users don’t really like to work in the code level; they want to basically move things around on the screen and answer questions that are very succinct in how they are asked.
Richard: You know, if you have been with us, Alan for over twenty years now, and what we’ve discovered just from a lot of feed-back from our customers, is two aspects – one is as you say, if you’re an end user, but you understand your business and you’re trying to actually build an application, there’s a strong desire to have a package like Alpha, that doesn’t require that you learn how to program in order to implement the system.
The other aspect that we’re starting to see is that even for developers who can code - at the end of the day, one of the most precious commodities they have, is time. So, if they are working for a company in the development function or say if they are a consulting and helping other businesses – the ability to produce these solutions, without having to code, is also attractive, (as long as they know that they do have a full-blown programming language, like we do in Alpha Five to fall back on if they have something that’s ultra-custom, where they want need that level of extra control).
Alan: I know, as a programmer, myself, I have seen tons of applications and the validation part is the last thing that usually gets put in – things like if the telephone number is formatted the exact way is that they put in enough numbers. Those things are what programmers put in the last thing before it goes out the door. And in most cases, they don’t put them in.
Richard: That’s exactly true. And the implications of that are that you’ve got people running the system – just using your example – and if the telephone number doesn’t have a formatting rule attached to it – and they start entering data and then a year later, you are looking at this file and it is a mess. and then you Then you have to spend hundreds or even thousands cleaning up the data. The result is that we’ve now got a file pile of data and it’s amiss a mess, it’s not clean; the addresses are inconsistent, telephone numbers are inconsistent; spelling is wrong – all these kinds of things can be eliminated in the first place, if designed right correctly by having a good database application.
Alan: Richard, we are out of time and next time we will talk, in depth, about the ways that businesses can create their own applications using Alpha Five.
Richard: Alan, I really have enjoyed being with you again, and I thank you for the opportunity.
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Guide to Alpha Five Versions
