JDA

Clarion Accepts the Challenge

The Challenge

JDA Software, Inc., makers of Point of Sale (POS) software, had a challenge: develop a multi-user, Windows-based POs application supporting two or many more cash registers. The system had to operate in very small installations and smoothly scale up to much larger installations. JDA entered the POs software market late in the game and faced competition from IBM, NCR, and Fujitsu. Additionally, the POs department was a new group within JDA.

JDA called on Clarion for Windows to conquer this challenge — within the allocated time and budget restraints.

The Selection Process

JDA’s first appointed a team to determine which tool could meet the Windows project challenge. A number of tools were evaluated including: Visual Basic, Visual C++, Delphi, PowerBuilder, Oracle, Progress, Informix and Clarion for Windows.

The team quickly eliminated all except Visual C++ and Clarion because of excessive hardware requirements. All of the eliminated tools required too much hardware muscle to operate effectively in small store environments where one or two cash registers may comprise the entire system.

JDA ultimately selected Clarion because of its ease of use and development time savings. Another determining factor was Clarion’s integrated database dictionary and template-based code generator.

The Benefits

Given JDA’s requirements for developing a large system on a relatively small budget, the project’s team leader, Scott Hines, described Clarion’s benefits:

"Clarion for Windows solved these two critical problems by allowing us to produce a full-featured industrial strength application using a fraction of the time and staffing that would have been required using another development tool. We were able to catch and actually pass our much larger competitors because we could produce our application so rapidly. And we did this within our time and budget constraints because Clarion made each of our developers as productive as a much larger group of programmers," he said. "I believe that had it not been for the unparalleled productivity available in Clarion for Windows, we would never have been able to complete our application within the time and budget allocated for the project."

The productivity factor was dramatically demonstrated midway through the project. One of its largest competitors contacted JDA to find out if they would be interested in purchasing their almost-completed project. Thirty developers had worked three years on a Windows POs application using Microsoft Visual Basic and Microsoft Visual C/C++. The project was so over budget and behind schedule, they decided to sell its work in progress.

JDA was initially quite interested and sent Scott to do a technical analysis. He was shocked to find that despite a far greater investment of time and manpower, their project was well behind the Clarion project at that point. Four Clarion programmers — working one year — had already created a far more feature-rich, far less buggy application than thirty programmers working three years with other tools. JDA declined the opportunity. The competitor’s parent company shut down the project.

JDA Today

In October, 1996, JDA started the wide scale deployment of its Windows POs application. Approximately 175 installations of an expected 3,500 have gone live. According to JDA, customers are extremely pleased with the Clarion-based application.

Home

Shop.SoftVelocity