The versatility and openness of products from the Software AG (SAG) stable, developer of Adabas and Natural, are reflected in SAG`s growing market share in SA, where the offerings are distributed and supported by Dimension Data.
"Although a low marketing profile has been maintained, Software AG`s presence in SA has continued to grow substantially under the direction of Dimension Data, which acquired the rights to the tool sets in the early 1990s," says Tony Davis, MD of Dovetail Business Solutions, whose company has been actively deploying SAG solutions in SA for the past eight years.
SAG has recognised Dovetail as SA`s leading deployment company of SAG tools in Dovetail`s niche sphere of logistics software.
Dovetail`s flagship product, FreightWare has been installed at a number of companies in SA, such as UPS Logistics Group SA, Unitrans Freight, Berco Express, Dawn Wing Couriers, Imperilog Group, Value Group, Shurlok and DNA. Davis says the intention now is to expand its market share in SA, as well as to break into the international market and moves are afoot to begin a joint effort with Dimension Data in UK and Europe where SAG holds in excess of 68% market share.
"The future is XML (eXtensible Markup Language) which is simple and open - an absolute must in the networked information society as it is easy to read by both humans and `machines`, making it a potential solution for simplifying the exchange of electronic documents over the Internet.
"Tamino is SAG`s XML database and infrastructure. Now that the world is going back to centralised computing, scalability, speed, costs, transactions and space are paramount and Adabas is coming out again as the world`s fastest and most reliable transaction processing database," says Davis.
These elements, he says, comprise the essential back office for an e-business enterprise. They have to be fast and robust operating in a 24x7 environment.
"The fact that in the past eight years we have had no database crashes among our 1 500 plus users, or one million plus transactions per month, speaks for this reliability," declares Davis.
In addition to this robustness and massively scalable operating environment is the benefit of true rapid application development (RAD), greatly improving time to market. Using Construct, a SAG code generator, about 80% of code is generated, minimising errors and time to market considerably. As Dovetail keeps close tabs on its `vanilla` version, new systems can be rolled out quickly while existing customer systems can rapidly be upgraded at negligible cost.
He emphasises that Adabas/Natural is not a proprietary system and runs on almost any platform, including SCO Unix, midrange Unix or Windows NT or even mainframe.
Key to Dovetail`s operation is Dimension Data`s support and technological back-up structure. Each SAG system passes a quality assurance test before implementation, while the full weight of Dimension Data`s technical resources is provided where necessary.
"Where FreightWare is the foundation layer providing the essential back office structure, front end systems such as e-business which comprises integration, implementation and interaction, allow users access to the database.
"The interface which provides connectivity to any device such as standard web enabling or mobile commerce via WAP, SMS, Palm Pilot or cellular technology, offers further database access with the ability to drill down or pull reports, charts, graphs and tracking. All can be viewed in a dynamic environment and being written in pure Java, is accessible on any browser.
"Where most companies set up a Web server with a separate database, FreightWare`s use of SAG technology requires only one database, further simplifying the business methodology," says Davis. "Integration takes us days as opposed to weeks while time to market is minimised because we create a standard e-business software module and simply position it on the back-end."
This methodology, he maintains, provides a return on investment (ROI) of between two and five months for the FreightWare solution set.
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Dimension Data Holdings plc (LSE: DDT) is a leading global technology services company, specialising in providing IT solutions that enable businesses to operate and communicate flexibly and seamlessly. The group`s unique combination of networking and application integration expertise and global managed services capabilities make it ideally positioned to deliver these solutions.
Dimension Data, founded in 1983, had revenues of $2.5 billion in 2001 and operates in 30+ countries with over 9 500 employees.
Dovetail Business Solutions
Dovetail Business Solutions (Pty) Ltd is a leading software development company specialising in logistics software for a wide range of clients. Its clients include freight, courier and distribution companies as well as warehousing, 3PL and 4PL companies operating in all arenas of the supply chain.
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