|
|
Indepth Interview with Cincom's Founder Thomas M. Nies
posted by Peter William Lount 
Cincom has the distinction of being the only Smalltalk vendor with three, yes three, versions of Smalltalk that they support. Quotes from the interview: "... the nature of the technology that we offer. We don't offer technology that the customer can buy, use for a while, and then throw away. He builds his applications around it. The company is completely and utterly dependent upon it. It is strategic software. It is the infrastructure around which the companies run. All of our software is that way." "Are you willing to persevere over time, year after year, doing what you believe is right for yourselves, your customers, your people over the long term?" ... "Stability over time, built to last, the commitments to the customers, the kind of business we're in causes us to be a company that is year-in, year-out trying to improve itself and better itself and grow." ..."There are some good opportunity areas for us today, for example, the area of object-oriented, the area of distributed and downsized manufacturing systems, the area of text and text applications development." "This integration of diverse technologies, we believe will be and must be built around object-oriented technology. Object-oriented technology will enable end users to construct their own applications without building, developing, and maintaining them. The software in effect automates the building and developing processes. As computers are designed to automate processes, we need to automate the process of building and developing applications so that we can have a 100 or 200-fold (improvement in the) implementation of computers and move them rapidly everywhere." "In order to make this happen, we need new technologies in the area of object-oriented development and object-oriented database management. We need new technologies not only in those area, but also in the areas of automated workflow so that work doesn't move physically from desk to desk, but rather it's all moving around networks. In this way, people are integrated into automated work flow, and what moves around those networks are objects. The world of the future will be object-oriented." Cincom's Smalltalks Cincom Founder Bio Copyright 1 9 9 9 - 2 0 1 0 b y S m a l l t a l k . o r g "! , A l l R i g h t s R e s e r v e d . |
|