Market Background
The Galaxy Application Environment
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Visix Software Inc.
11440 Commerce Park Drive
Reston, VA 22091
703.758.8230/Telephone
800.832.8668/Toll Free
703.758.0233/Facsimile
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The Galaxy Application Environment

INTRODUCTION

In 1992, Visix introduced the Galaxy Application Environment, a
breakthrough product that enables application developers to build
large-scale, mission-critical applications which can be ported and
distributed across all major system platforms. Galaxy frees application
developers from the constraints of platform-specific operating systems,
networks, and windowing systems. Galaxy allows developers to build
portable, distributed applications with less effort than currently
required to build single-platform applications.

GALAXY INDUSTRY CONTEXT

The forces shaping the computer industry have converged on the problem of
developing the next-generation of corporate applications. As users
continue to move away from centralized computing, the corporate
application environment has become fragmented with applications and tools
tied to specific platforms that vary across departments and divisions.

Downsizing Waves and Development Tools

The first wave of downsizing has consisted primarily of applications which
fit neatly into small-scale departmental or branch-level implementations.
Low-end development tools, such as PowerBuilder or SQL Windows, have been
instrumental in enabling the development and deployment of small-scale
client/server applications. In contrast, the second downsizing wave
involves corporate applications which must be implemented across
departments and divisions. The environment for "second-wave" applications
consists of heterogeneous platforms and networks. These large-scale
applications cannot be built with client/server application development
tools designed for simple department and workgroup applications.

The Application Development Challenge

Application developers face the daunting challenge of building second wave
applications in the context of confusing options and trends. Developers
have to identify technology winners and losers among the contending
operating systems, networks, and window systems. They also have to assess
the economic and market strength of the companies and the alliances behind
competing products. Even developers dedicated to Microsoft-only
application development must choose among competing Windows APIs. As
developers scan the environment for solutions, the application backlog
grows and user expectations for turnaround and functionality rise.

The cautionary tale of the early 1990s establishes that there will continue
to be multiple application environment factors to consider which bear
directly on the decisions developers make early in a project cycle.
Months, sometimes years, before implementing a large-scale application
developers make technology commitments which carry significant business
ramifications.

THE PORTING MULTIPLIER

In the past, with standalone character-based applications the norm,
experienced developers could contain platform differences to under 30% of
the total application. Porting was difficult, but manageable. Now,
graphical computing has collided with distributed computing to
dramatically amplify the porting problem. It is little wonder that
application development projects suffer from spiraling development and
porting costs.

Consider the "simple" case of developing a graphical application for a
single platform. The developer must optimize the application to the unique
characteristics of the native windowing system, networking, and operating
system. Now consider the effort and cost of porting that application to
multiple platforms. The developer must try to deliver equivalent
functionality on platforms which do not have equivalent features. A
sensible decision made for a single-platform application, such as
exploiting the maximum simultaneous open file limit, can translate into a
porting nightmare.

Finally, consider the multiplier effect of creating a true distributed
application, and implementing it across five or six platforms. Between
multiple learning curves, application redesign, and iterative testing
cycles, the overall effort can expand to five or six times the original
case. And, what of internationalization? The text labels that are
hardwired into the hundreds of fixed-size buttons and other user interface
objects may enlarge beyond the size of the interface objects, particularly
in the German or Japanese versions. Even developers experienced in porting
applications cannot cost-effectively flatten the porting multiplier for
distributed, graphical applications.

ALTERNATIVES FOR FLATTENING THE PORTING MULTIPLIER

Developers facing the application porting multiplier have three basic
alternatives:

** Build and maintain a comprehensive portability environment. In the past,
some development organizations have considered home-grown portability
environments to be a "strategic" investment in infrastructure. The value
of such portability environments decreases rapidly as the pace of
technological innovation increases, as it has over the past five years.
Many developers who have followed this route in the past have realized
there is far greater value in maximizing the investment in application
functionality and performance, and minimizing investment in application
infrastructure.

** Solve as much as 50% of the problem with a commercially available
portable GUI builder tool, such as XVT or Open Interface. These, and other
products available in the marketplace, offer a single API for building the
graphical user interface for a small-scale application, and then handle
the porting of the user interface across platforms with little additional
developer involvement. However, the portable user interface addresses
fewer than half of the issues which must be handled to port applications.
The remaining work goes into managing platform differences related to
networking, memory management, file management, or other operating system
services.

** Solve 100% of the problem with the only available cross-platform
development environment for mission-critical, distributed
applications--the Galaxy Application Environment from Visix Software.
Galaxy offers total application portability for mission-critical
applications. Many developers who have in the past chosen either of the
first two options have embraced the Galaxy Application Environment. Galaxy
enables a developer to build an entire application once, and then compile
and run that application without source changes on any one of six system
platforms--Windows 3.1, UNIX, Windows NT, OpenVMS, OS/2, or Macintosh.

THE GALAXY APPLICATION ENVIRONMENT: THE SOLUTION FOR THE SECOND WAVE

The second wave challenge is to convert the fragmented application
landscape into an integrated environment. The application development
tools required to meet that challenge must transcend the limitations of
the past. Galaxy targets the second wave of downsizing with
industrial-strength support for developing mission-critical, distributed,
cross-platform applications. Galaxy is a high-end programming environment,
designed for professional developers building sophisticated applications
for competitive advantage, either within a corporation or for resale in
the global marketplace.

A Complete Development Environment

Galaxy provides a state-of-the-art graphical user interface builder as one
component of a comprehensive set of innovative tools, object-oriented
libraries, and distributed runtime services. The Galaxy environment
insulates developers from diverse user interface, network, and operating
system anomalies. With Galaxy developers can create a completely portable
application without having to compromise functionality. The advanced
Galaxy architecture makes it routine for application developers to create
rich, scalable, extensible applications which can be immediately compiled
and run across all major system platforms with no code changes.

LEADING DEVELOPERS HAVE ADOPTED GALAXY

Application developers in leading global user and ISV organizations have
adopted Galaxy for strategic application development projects. The
accomplishments of these developers illustrate the depth and power of the
Galaxy environment in contexts ranging from CASE tools to securities
trading applications. Galaxy specifically targets the needs of high-end
professional developers and has proven itself in hundreds of real world
environments. Leading corporations and major ISVs such as J.P. Morgan,
Unify, IBM, LEGENT, Xerox and many others are using Galaxy today to build
their mission-critical applications.

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