In a deal that has evidently taken longer to put together than Boole & Babbage Inc expected, judging from the nods and winks certain employees were making last autumn (CI No 1,514), the company has finally announced a development agreement with IBM. The development project will address the CICS environment and the project will be split between IBM Hursley in the UK and Boole & Babbage’s engineering headquarters in Sunnyvale, California. Both IBM and Boole & Babbage are keeping mum about what is actually being developed, though they will say the end product will be targeted for environments running multiple CICS systems and regions, and it is not CICS for AIX. One thing that Boole & Babbage is clear about is that its CICS Manager product will remain strategic and that when the product it is developing with IBM is available, CICS Manager users will be given a smooth upgrade path to the new product. The two companies have not yet agreed who will market the product and Boole & Babbage says that at this time IBM is not taking an equity position in the company.
