To better serve our customers, we have implemented the Premium Customer Program. Inmark's Premium Customer Program is the best way to get the most out of your investment in the zApp Developer's Suite. It is an annual maintenance program and includes service, support, and upgrades for a year.
The Inmark Premium Customer Program provides the easiest way to take advantage of Inmark's continuing investment in the zApp family of products. We invest heavily in our products so that they will continue to be the industry's best solution for cross-platform development, and we are looking forward to adding a number of exciting capabilities in the coming year. The program carries with it several benefits, including:
Free -- All product upgrades
Upgrades to licensed products for a year. This includes major releases that add
significant new functionality. These upgrades are shipped to you automatically
immediately upon their release.
Free -- Voice technical support
Unlimited technical support over the phone from one of Inmark's highly trained
technical support specialists who are knowledgeable about standard development
practices and tools, as well as Inmark's own products.
Free -- Premium access to the Inmark BBS
Premium access to the Inmark BBS. The BBS is monitored throughout the day by
Inmark technical support specialists. It is an easy way to get timely access to
the latest product information.
Free -- Support via CompuServe and Internet
Premium priority response support and file access via CompuServe and Internet email.
Inmark provides email support via the Internet and also has an FTP site for
uploading and downloading files. Inmark also provides access to Inmark's CompuServe
forum, which includes sample files as well as a number of discussion groups
"When I designed HeapAgent, I envisioned a stellar application," said veteran C++ programmer, Arthur Applegate. "I wanted it to be as visually appealing as Excel or Word. zApp offers the broadest feature set and cross-platform portability. The class design is a work of art."
Applegate should know. He's been developing commercial applications in C++ since 1987 -- even before the major compiler vendors supported the language. His products have won major awards from the Windows Tech Journal and Software Development magazine.
HeapAgent is his newest masterpiece. It's a commercial tool for detecting and diagnosing runtime memory errors in C and C++ applications. Its competitive advantage comes from its graphical interface, which dramatically reduces the time required to identify, locate, and fix memory bugs.
Dialog boxes control HeapAgent's settings. At the heart of the application, six integrated browsers allow programmers to examine the complex debugging information. The application exploits the flashiest interface features available -- toolbars, a status line, bitmap buttons, and 3-D controls.
HeapAgent was Applegate's first zApp project. "There was absolutely no learning curve," he reported. "It's so intuitive that I was instantaneously up to speed."
Applegate credits zApp's design for the speedy development of HeapAgent's most sophisticated component: The Dump Browser. It displays the entire contents of the heap in a two dimensional matrix -- addresses on one axis and offsets on the other. zApp's zTable object came through, giving HeapAgent a robust interface that leaves the competition in the dust.
MicroQuill Software Publishing, Inc., launched HeapAgent at the end of 1994. Its success was immediate and overwhelming. MicroQuill's president, Tom Marvin said, "We doubled our sales projections for the first three months. Engineers at AT&T, Intel, Sybase, MCI, and others were impressed with the completeness of our error detection. However, it was the graphical interface that really blew them away."
Recently, Applegate ported HeapAgent to 32-bit Windows. "It was a very clean port," he said. "It worked the first time."
"Consultants can't afford to waste time rewriting appliation code," said Kevin Howard, Senior Consultant at Wootton Jeffreys Ltd. "Using zApp, we were able to write one set of complex graphical mapping code, and used it in three separate applications. Virtually without modification."
Wootton Jeffreys, a member of thw WS Atkins Group, is one of England's leading advanced transportations telematics consultancies. The firm specializes in the use of new technologies in the transportation field.
One of their major clients is the United Kingdom's Automobile Association. AA hired Wootton Jeffreys to develop a graphical tool to edit a database of all major roads and destinations in Europe.
Howard sought out an application framework that would allow his team to produce high quality applications without low level Windows programming. To make certain they chose the best GUI, he created two NetMaster prototypes. One with zApp. The other with Zinc. Howard said, "zApp showed us much greater flexibility and reusability. Plus, it interfaced extremely well with Borland's Paradox engine."
The choice to develop NetMaster with zApp paid off in spades. Howard found zApp intuitive and easy to use. When he had problems, Inmark's technical support team was there to help. "Even from England their response was excellent."
NetMaster contains about two dozen dialogs, which allow the user to edit, add, or delete roads and destinations. The application can draw a map of the network on the display and compute the most efficient route between two points. It employs extensive validation routines to ensure an accurate database.
The Automobile Association was thrilled with the final product. Within the first six months, the size of the network database increased by 10%.
Wootton Jeffreys leveraged their code investment by reusing large sections of NetMaster code in two other routing appliations, PLEIADES and TRIPlanner.
PLEIADES provides integrated driver information within the Paris/London corridor. Wootton Jeffreys jump-started development by combining the Automobile Association's routing database with information on hotels, scenic routes, and tourist attractions.
A third system, TRIPlanner, includes information on public transportation -- busses, trains, coaches, and airplanes. Terminals are installed at key locations in Hampshire county including railway stations, libraries, shopping centers, ferry terminals, and airports. "Due to the wonders of object-oriented programming in C++ and zApp, much of the code for the three systems was identical. This spared us untold hours of rewriting and in turn saved our clients thousands of pounds sterling."
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