Press Release
GrafxSoft Announces a Development, Licensing, and Marketing
Agreement for CA-Clipper and CA-Visual Objects
West Palm Beach, FL, April 22, 2002 - GrafXSoft (GrafX Software
Development Tools) Announced today that they have reached a
Development, Licensing, and Marketing Agreement with Computer
Associates (CA) for two of their software development languages -
CA-Clipper and CA-Visual Objects. The CA logo will remain on the
package, but the design, development, testing, and marketing of both
products are now controlled by GrafXSoft. Despite changes in CA's
development master plan, CA recognizes that CA-Visual Objects is an
important and widely used Windows development tool and is acting to
continue active development through this agreement.
Brian Feldman, President of GrafXSoft, stated "This
arrangement will continue CA-Visual Objects (CA-VO) as a viable and
robust 32 bit development environment and allow us to improve VO for
many years to come." Mr. Feldman is enlisting the services and
products of many well known CA-VO third-party developers to continue
VO's evolution. The following features are targeted for inclusion in
the new 2.6 version of CA-VO:
1. Fortress TCP/IP Client/Server (by Loadstone Software, makers
of the Comix RDD)
2. ReportPro Version 2.10 (by DataPro)
3. VO Productivity Pack (by Paul Piko)
4. VO COM (by Rod da Silva)
5. VO2ADO (by Robert van der Hulst)
6. VO Express (by Ed Richard)
7. VO Script (by John Marshall)
8. Tag_it (by Tom Elledge)
9. CA-VO Software Development Kit (Computer Associates)
Following the 2.6 release, GrafXSoft will begin the design and
testing of new features to be included in the next major release of
CA-VO 3.0 based on the VO community's feedback. Mr. Feldman believes
that this product now belongs primarily to the VO community and
intends to guide its development toward many more successful
releases.
Quotes from CA-Visual Objects users:
"This contract is the best move that could possibly be done
for and with VO. We at VOCA are very excited about the opportunities
this deal opens to VO and the VO community. We are very confident
that Brian will steer VO into a successful future. VOCA will
continue its support for VO and closely work together with GrafXSoft."
As quoted by Oskar Schneider, editor of SDT magazine and VOCA
spokesman.
Ginny Caughey (main author of "Using Visual Objects" by
Que and international speaker on VO) says: "I am delighted to
learn that Brian Feldman and Grafx Software will be taking over
development of CA-Visual Objects and CA-Clipper. Through the years,
these products have become powerful mainstays for developers of
business software. Brian continues this tradition and adds special
insights of his own. As a longtime Clipper and VO developer, he
understands what application developers need today in a way that a
large corporation never could. As one of the developers of the data
drivers inside both products, he is imminently qualified to take
over maintenance and technical direction of the products. And as a
reseller of developers' tools to programmers all over the world, he
knows what programmers want in the products they buy and how to
market to them."
"This plan basically puts the future of Visual Objects in to
the hands of the VO user community now." said Tom Walden
(co-author, speaker, and lead developer for Auditron Electronics).
"We have always contended that Visual Objects was one of CA's
best kept secrets, but in this unprecedented move on their part, CA
is opening the window wide open for future enhancements and
marketing potential of Visual Objects. We couldn't be more pleased
with this decision!"
Robert van der Hulst (aka Mr. Data, with Solution Application
Software in the Netherlands) has this to say: "I am very happy
that Brian managed to convince CA that the development of Visual
Objects should continue. Visual Objects is a very productive
development environment with tremendous potential. Adding 3rd party
solutions, such as the VO Productivity Pack to the product,
is a very smart move on Brian's part. I hope that Brian manages to
turn VO into the success story it deserves, and is also able to
develop the product into the Dot.Net environment. I wish Brian and
his team lots of success."
From Gary Stark (co-author of CA-Visual Objects Developers Guide
by SAMS) has this to say about CA's decision: "Computer
Associates has done a wonderful job in bringing Visual Objects to
where it is today, where it remains the most elegant of solutions
for the development of robust business applications. In addition to
allowing VO to be more directly marketed within the small to medium
development software industry, this intiative will also permit the
language to extend well beyond where it is today, and fully embrace
the technologies that are emerging for the future."
"The Software Developers Group Netherlands has great
confidence in this initiative. Brian Feldman has always been there
for the VO community, and we are convinced the future of both
Clipper and Visual Objects is in capable hands. One of the strong
points of the products has always been the support from third
parties. Brian will be able to channel that support, and certainly
enhance and develop Visual Objects as a result." As quoted from
Ed Richard, President of the Visual Objects section of SDGN (www.sdgn.nl)
About Computer Associates Computer Associates International, Inc.
(NYSE: CA) delivers The Software That Manages eBusiness. CA's
world-class solutions address all aspects of eBusiness management
through industry-leading brands: Unicenter for infrastructure
management, BrightStor for storage management, eTrust for security
management, CleverPath for portal and business intelligence,
AllFusion for application life cycle management, Advantage for data
management and application development, and Jasmine for
object-oriented database technology. Founded in 1976, CA serves
organizations in more than 100 countries, including 99 percent of
the Fortune 500 companies. For more information, visit http://ca.com.
About Grafx Software GrafXSoft ... a world leader in the
distribution of specialized database application development tools,
was founded by Brian Feldman in 1989, as a company that contracted
with 3rd party Clipper developers, providing sales and technical
support for them. After negotiating a contract for inclusion in
CA-Clipper and CA-Visual Objects for Ganahl's FlexFile, and
Loadstone's Comix and ClipMore, GrafXSoft's role changed
considerably to become an international re-seller of database
development tools, thereby guaranteeing a channel of distribution
for products that we develop in the future.
Grafx Software Development Tools
www.grafxsoft.com
11900 Torreyanna Circle,
West Palm Beach, Florida USA 33412
Brian Feldman: 561-691-0900, USA: 800-659-4723 or sales@grafxsoft.com |