Nomad Software - Development: 1990 To Present

Development: 1990 To Present

Nomad products continued to develop along multiple product lines in the 1990s with support for more sources of data and more operating systems. A new version of Nomad for Microsoft Windows, Front & Center, was released in 1993. New versions of Nomad for Unix and VAX were also released, with access to Oracle and SQL server data. Report Painter, a graphical user interface tool for writing reports, was added to the Front & Center product line. RP/Server was also released in the 1990s for accessing mainframe databases as remote databases from a variety of clients, including Report Painter, Front & Center applications, and DDE-enabled Microsoft Windows applications, such as Microsoft Excel. ODB/Server was introduced for transparent access to ODBC-compliant databases from Front & Center.

On the mainframe front, Nomad added double-byte character support and ran under the Fujitsu operating system. QLIST was added to the mainframe product line, providing a user-friendly environment for developing sophisticated reports without extensive knowledge of Nomad syntax. Nomad remains an extremely stable product that is enhanced to keep up with contemporary needs, such as access to Oracle and SQL Server data on mid-tier platforms, full e-mail support and additional types of output formatted in HTML, XML, and PDF.

A new line of products began later in the 1990s, starting with RP/Web. This was the precursor to UltraQuest Applications, giving users the ability to Web-enable their mainframe Nomad applications. The UltraQuest Reporter product was added to this line-up late in the 1990s, for easy reporting from the Web or from a PC of mainframe data via Nomad. The experience gained from developing and supporting the QLIST and Report Painter products was applied to the development of UltraQuest Reporter. Their influence is clearly visible in UltraQuest Reporter, but Reporter uses Java and HTML technology to create a more user-friendly environment and provide more services.

The basic philosophy of the Nomad language, to simplify the application development and reporting processes with an intuitive and powerful syntax, is carried forward into the UltraQuest products. UltraQuest Reporter applies a layer on top of the 4GL to make report-building even easier, without writing any syntax at all, employing an intuitive and powerful graphical user interface. Other features and services make reporting applications and data securely available through the Web to any employee’s PC.