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Compuware describes Uniface as “an Application Platform Suite (APS) that combines traditional strengths of developer productivity and platform independence with new technologies such as mobile, web services and Ajax. This makes it a productive development platform for the rapid application development of mission-critical, service-oriented enterprise applications”. That does sum it up, although Compuware Uniface provides a deployment environment as well as one that supports development. It is also important to note that it is no longer limited to character-mode applications or conventional client-server developments. This has been true for some time but Uniface 9.2 now delivers support for a multichannel environment which supports mobile platforms as well as web-based applications, enterprise-strength “mashups”, SOA and Web Services and workflow applications.

However, it is also worth emphasising that Uniface stresses “business continuity”—new releases are always backwards compatible and it aims at steady improvement, not the “rip and replace” introduction of new capability. The product also has significant capabilities for leveraging legacy resources, both in terms of existing data sources and with respect to currently deployed monolithic and client/server applications. In terms of its methodology, Uniface provides a model- driven, component-based development environment. There are four major themes to this new release:

• Multichannel deployment, including mobile devices as first-class players.
• A new focus on end-user computing with “enterprise mashups”.
• Improved support for SOA and Web Services
• General improvements to the Uniface APS environment (memory management, for instance, is improved to cope with larger systems).

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