The aim is to sneak into the Linux marketplace, as Richard Gooding, Product Manager at PROIV, admits: “The Linux world tends to expect free software, so we thought a penguin campaign might hit the mark. Feedback has been hilarious – I sometimes wonder if there’s more interest in a squishy penguin than Linux development software.”
PROIV hopes that developers will start to use the Single Developer version – which is not time-limited and delivers fully working applications – and then move on to the enterprise runtime licence, which is chargeable.
What the story is *really* about
PROIV is one of the leading RAD tools, and this is the first Linux version. The aim is to get PROIV into Linux developers’ hands, so they learn and understand the environment.
PROIV Single Developer is free, and fully functional. There is one component that is not included: the full multi-user runtime. If a developer writes an application that needs a full runtime licence (for multiple use or for multiple developers), then that becomes chargeable.
This model is the opposite of many development tools. Rather than pay up front for a development environment, with PROIV Single Developer you can create and run as many single applications as you like, and never pay a penny until you “go commercial.”
When the applications go into full-scale commercial production, then a licence fee becomes payable, and a full copy of the PROIV software is required (which has some additional functionality suitable to enterprise-scale operations).
This free-until-you-make-money approach is much closer to the Linux model, and is intended to help PROIV gain acceptance in the Linux world.
Northgate Information Solutions and PROIV
Northgate’s PROIV is a RAD technology used by software developers to build all aspects of business applications for organisations working in a wide range of sectors including finance, manufacturing, retail, government, construction, transportation and leisure. It aims to remove the layers of complexity surrounding new technology and makes it work for enterprises – whatever the new technological revolution that is taking place whether in the server, database, desktop or network space.
PROIV is an extremely efficient and powerful application development tool for building high quality, industrial strength web-enabled business applications that scale from the PC to the Mainframe. Companies throughout the world are using applications written in PROIV to power their business processes. Organisations from BP, Direct Line, Kawasaki and TNT to Standard Life and the University of Nottingham all use systems written in PROIV.
