ABSTRACT
IBM unveiled one of the worst kept secrets in the history of computing on the 19th September 1989, when it announced its long term software development strategy. IBM offer systems based on several different hardware architectures and control programs. Systems application architecture (SAA) is a growing collection of selected software interfaces, conventions and protocols that are being published at the time of writing, intended as the framework for developing consistent, integrated applications across the future offerings of the major IBM computing environments. Common applications are applications developed by IBM using SAA. The first of these was OfficeVision, since discontinued, and the second application development cycle (AD/Cycle). The AD/Cycle announcement not only included IBM’s own tools but those of third party vendors, who were divided into two classes: equity partners and participants. The Information Warehouse is a direct challenge to Digital’s Information Network, which allows users to access IBM’s DB2 database.
