Software Solutions Through Object-Oriented Programming: Creating Customer Databases

Struggling in the mid-1990s with three different legacy systems--the wayward stepchildren of company mergers and acquisitions--Brittania Life's receptionists found themselves shifting (or rather crawling) back and forth between three similar-but-different databases while customers dangled on hold. Not quite cricket, as they say. Realizing that the time had come for an object-oriented programming change, the UK-based company's Glasgow officers looked to Dublin's Managed Solutions Corporation, which provided the first part of the solution: OASIS, a 3-tier client/server product suite designed to operate in both local and wide-area network infrastructures. The second part of the answer to Brittania's prayers came from Iona Technologies, whose Orbix cross-platform middleware ensured that objects would be efficiently distributed across the network. Despite the title and the preceding sentences, Creating Customer Databases is not nearly as techie as it sounds; many of the interview clips come from project managers and public relations people, not the cubicle-bound geeks, making this ideal for upper management types. However, given the fact that the Brittania system was designed and implemented at the end of 1996 and we are presently at the end of 1999 (three years being half a lifetime in software terms), this would have to be considered pretty optional (in fact, if you want to read the four-page overview of Brittania's experience, you can find it online for free at www.iona.ie/info/aboutus/customers/britannia.html). Other titles in the 9-part series include: Successful Interface Design, Object-Oriented Programming in the Arts, Security Systems and Software and Global Software Programmers. Aud: C, P. (R. Pitman)