Road Map
19 May 1996 updated
(Only available on the meeting live site)
Priorities
Probably the great majority of enterprise users of PowerDesigner
would roughly agree on the following issues being of the higest priority
to them:
- PowerDesigner's vision and scope are not
communicated clearly and with conviction.
- Support and customer service
are weak or absent.
- Code quality in the exsiting product
is poor and must be improved.
- PowerDesigner urgently needs features to support large scale development
accross multiple models and multiple workers.
- The linkage between the CDM and PDM
needs to be more understandable, configurable, reliable, and flexible to
support bi-directional and multi-platform modeling.
- The perception of value is eroding
as pricing has changed, service
remains weak, and product modules do not line up well with enterprise needs.
- Enhancement and integration of more process
oriented facilities would be welcome if it does not come at the expense
of the issues above.
Pitfalls
- New bugs as the old die
- More scatter-shot feature surprises
- Continued lack of communication from Powersoft re product plans and
releases
- Narrow focus on PowerBuilder generation
- Super-ambitious (e.g., OO) replay of the I-CASE
fiasco.
Road map
HTML image maps are typically cached heavily. You may start a new session
but still see old pages. If you are using Netscape, remember to
use Options|Clear Memory Cache and Options|Clear Disk Cache
each time you start a session. Then Reload the current page to get
the freshest image.
The diagram below is a simplified overview of the navigation paths in
this presentation. There are many more nodes than shown below. Shadowed
images represent map pages which point to multiple paths. But every node
page can be reached through one of the image links below and most are accessible
within two mouse clicks.
You can navigate via image or text links to any node to read or augment
the discussion on that node topic.
Color Key (also active buttons):
Overlooked opportunities
- Business rules are nearly unique among competing
tools, very useful, missing some critical
components, criptic in presentation, and explained poorly in the product.
- PowerDesigner's DEF files provide a large
measure of open database definition and configuration. This capability
is unmatched in any competing product.
The relational meta model in the MetaWorks
module opens PowerDesigner to nearly unlimited inspection, manipulation,
and management in the hands of creative relational thinkers. The open information
content is not promoted or published by Powersoft.
Where to go from here:
© ©
1996 Applied Information Science International