Cognos Inc, the Canadian software house based in Ottawa, Ontario, and developer of the PowerHouse fourth generation language has signed up Bournmouth, Hampshire-based Systematica Ltd as its computer-aided software engineering partner in a technology and marketing agreement signed this week. Cognos is to take Systematica’s Virtual Software Factory product, a knowledge-based software development design tool that uses object-oriented techniques to improve programmer productivity and system quality: code can be generated from the VSF design model once it is complete and consistent, and subsequent changes to the code are reflected in the design model. The product runs on VAX/VMS and Sun workstations, and Systematica has a technology agreement with DEC to develop VSF-based software tools addressing the various European design standards. An IBM PS/2 version is also under development. Cognos will launch its own version of VSF by the end of 1989, and will eventually fully integrate it with PowerHouse, now installed at 12,000 minicomputer sites worldwide, mostly on DEC and Hewlett-Packard hardware. Cognos says the move is part of its general strategy to expand the PowerHouse environment to cover all aspects of software development – it recently added StarBase, an SQL compliant relati onal database (CI No 1,084), and now runs on Hewlett-Packard minis under the HP/UX Unix implementati on. Versions for Data General’s new AViiON family and for the IBM AS/400 are planned (CI No 1,173).
