Future, what future for PowerHouse

[Byron Welch]

Kent,

I am sorry to say, I disagree with you.  Creative Computing Inc. (CCI)
is a firm with over 50 employees supporting Cognos products.  We have
over 30 people who work actively with PowerHouse on the full range of
platforms.  We have active contracts with not only PowerHouse, but also
PowerHouse Client and Axiant.   The growth of our business has been
steady and we see no end in site; at least for the foreseeable future.
Pricing is certainly an issue that needs to be addressed, but CCI is
confident that Cognos has no intention of abandoning the PowerHouse
product line.  In fact, we believe that Cognos will continue to enhance
the PowerHouse family of products well into the future as new
technologies become mainstream.  An example is the 8.20 version with WWW
features.

The joining of all platforms into a common code stream will make it
easier to create multi-platform ERP applications.  It is this type of
application that is really selling these days rather than individual
development languages.  Frequently this causes short term pain to some
users as they get used to change.  Useful features will inevitably make
their way back into the code stream.  For example, the floating century
window will only requires a recompile of the dictionary rather than the
program code.  This does not appear to be a major benefit at first, but
we believe it is a start in a more robust and stable application
development environment.

Another major advantage of the merged code stream is that PowerHouse
professionals like yourself will be able to transfer their existing
knowledgebase easily from platform to platform making you more valuable.
For us and our clients, programming resources will be easier to come by.

We believe with the rapid change in the computing industry, it is
prudent to pursue core competencies in emerging technologies.  CCI has
invested heavily in Business Intelligence, Web technology, and
Client/Sever computing platforms, as well as a datawarehousing practice.
We are not so nieve as to deny the world is changing, but we believe it
is short sighted to jump off the PowerHouse bandwagon as customers
everyday re-affirm their commitment to the platform by investing heavily
in Y2K compliance of their mission critical, PowerHouse-based computing
systems.

Mary

Mary E. Cunningham [mec@creatcomp.com]
Creative Computing, Inc.
100 Middle Street
Lincoln, RI 02865
(401) 727-0183 x105


-----Original Message-----
From: KHeathe673@aol.com [mailto:KHeathe673@aol.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 17, 1998 1:06 PM
To: powerh-l@lists.swau.edu
Subject: Future, what future for PowerHouse



I cannot resist this recent tirade re: Price of PowerHouse and Cognos
direction with Powerhouse.

I would suggest we stop pondering about the future of PowerHouse as we
all
know there is not one.
We are not happy about it, but there it is. Here is this observers
musings:

Consider:

1. What marketing Cognos does with PowerHouse 
	You can pick up any trade rag and find BI advertisements but not
PowerHouse

2. Consider Axiant
	Yikes! A barely functional VB3 look alike.
	Marketing ? (forget it )
	Clients using this product? (on Headhunter.net there are 65
PowerHouse Jobs,
Axiant 0)
	
3. Consider what Cognos is saying ?
	Sure for the sake of existing customers, they will sing a song
of revitalized
PowerHouse 8.
	Have you heard of a company in the last 3 years, which when
faced with
developing a new 
	application, went out and bought PowerHouse cold !
	Did you buy the line about Interbase and pay for all that
training out of
your own pocket ?
	Where's interbase support !
	
4. Fewer and fewer companies are building applications. ERP heard of it
?

5. Machine line support now gone as of PowerHouse 8.  One development
group,
one product line.
   Despite HP for example, recognizing there is a future to HP3000 (see
their
WEB site for new pricing etc...)
   Cognos is backing away from machine specific support or initiatives.
(are
all you VAX users happy about 
   losing PHD in version 8?)

6. What is the next generation of geeks learning ?   (Microsoft,
PowerBuilder,
Oracle, Java....) 

So in conclusion I would suggest we all stop whining and dreaming like a
bunch
of old farts, (I'm certainly one)
reminising about what a great technical feat the Spitfire was (or the
Mustang
for my U.S. friends), and quickly retrain
in what we know is being used in modern application development.

They can give Axiant away, and you still won't find a client to work
for.  I
live in Ottawa, Canada, where Cognos's HQ 
is, and I can assure you the sites doing anything with PowerHouse are
dropping
like flies.  The Government of Canada
is tossing millions of development effort away to streak to SAP and
other ERP
packages as fast as they can for
Financial,Materiel Management and Human Resources. So if you can't sell
your
product in your own home town,
how can any of be convinced there is a future to this product. 

There is'nt !

Kent Heatherington
(likely in trouble with my past Cognos co-workers now !)
kheathe673@aol.com
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