A Quote Quad interview
Ray Polivka · ACM SIGAPL APL Quote Quad · 1996
PREVIOUS ISSUE OFF QUOTE QUAD, we announced the formation of a new APL company: APL2000.In this issue, we are pleased to be able to present an interview with the new President of APL2000: Eric Baelen.QQ: Let's get started, Eric.Not too long ago, Manugistics sold their APL products to FFRS.Would you.tell us why this exciting new event in the APL world happened?Eric: Certainly.Financial Reporting Software (FITS) markets LEX2000--a financial consolidation and reporting package that is used at Fortune tooo companies.It is written in APL.In addition, FRS provides APL consulting and programming services.So you can see that from the beginning our company's future has been closely tied to APL.We were unhappy with the speed with which Manugistics was adding new features to the language and keeping it up-to-date.We were especially concerned about Windows and UNIX support.We looked at various alternatives such as switching to another language or switching to another version of APL, but none of them was as attractive as purchasing Manugisfics APL and being able to make the changes to it we felt were really necessary for ourselves and other users of the language.QQ: When did all of this happen ?Eric: It took a whUe to make it happen but we took over APL in October ofz995.QQ: What exactly happened?You bought the product and some very important people that came along with it.Eric: We purchased from Manugistics those APL platforms that we believe will have a future.We took the PC and UNIX products and left behind the Mainframe and VAX APL prod-16 ucts.The most important asset was the development and support team.You can't buy people, but most APLers are pretty dedicated to the language.We retained all of the Manugistics development and support staff, and were able to rehire several of the developers who had worked on these APL products previously.This gave us a set of developers ready to make the changes we needed quickly, with little startup delay.It was energizing for the group to leave an environment where APL was not a strategic product--nor being enhanced--and to move to a company where it's a main focus.QQ: So, how many people do you have now?Eric: FRS has grown from 11 people at its start to over 25 now.Two thirds of them are doing development and support of APL-based products and clients.A very significant amount by any standard.QQ: So if I understand it correctly, the products that you are marketing today are: APL+Win, APL+UNIX, APL+DOS, and APL+PC.That should help us all to speak of your products correctly.And the name of your company is... what?...Is it "FRS" or "APL2000"?Eric: Our name is APL2000.I like to be known as "~PL£O00 Rapid Application Development."That company is a whollyowned subsidiary of Financial ReporS_ng Software (FRS).APL2000 engages in producing APL products and services induding consulting, applications programming, and rescuing APLers (and APL applications