LavaLights

Dear «FirstName» «LastName»,
«Company»
Club Lava Member # «MembershipID»

(Note if there is no number displayed, we are still processing your application, please stay tuned. This issue of LavaLights has been sent to you with our apologies for the delay in processing your application to Club Lava ).

As a Club Lava member, you will be receiving regular exclusive e-mail updates called LavaLights.
LavaLights are highlights of exciting news about Obsydian and Synon.

Through LavaLights you will be the first to hear about how Synon is forging relationships, developing cutting edge technology and get the inside scoop on development plans and schedules. You can comment on our plans, design proposals by simply replying to the LavaLight e-mail.

I hope you enjoy this first issue of LavaLights, please reply to this e-mail with your full name, company name and membership number with any comments or questions.

In this first issue we cover the highlights of the Club Lava session at Synon IUC (International Users Conference) in San Diego and Synon's recent sponsorship of Tech Ed 97.

If you didn't make it to IUC in San Diego check out the cool presentations Overview of Obsydian 3.0 - Shirley Foster, Director Obsydian Development and Building Java applications with Obsydian - John Browne, Principal Software Engineer available in the lava lounge.

Also the conference marked the first meeting of Club Lava members in an extremely interactive and productive session called Club Lava - Let's chat about Obsydian UI Futures, you can download the zipped presentation and meeting notes also in the Lava Lounge.

Congratulations to Warren Muldrow of RINFO Inc. who won a classic Synon Polo shirt for the best suggestion during the session: the ability to be able to right mouse on a triple in the model editor to change it's configuration.

Synon co-sponsored Microsoft's Tech Ed 97 in Orlando May 59, 1997. Again, you'll find more details in the lava lounge. However, what you won't find is the secret diaries of one of Synon's representatives at Tech Ed. As Club Lava members I am happy to be able to give you a flavor of the excitement generated with a behind the scenes look at Synon at Tech Ed '97. Enjoy!

Hi all,
This is truly an amazing time to be with Synon. I just wanted to attempt to convey to all of you the excitement and opportunity here at the Microsoft Tech Ed conference. For those of you who may not yet know, Tech Ed is Microsoft's largest Windows NT conference (approximately 8,000 attendees) and Synon is one of only seven sponsors.

Anyway, we spent today setting up our new and very impressive show booth in preparation for tomorrow's kickoff. Everyone rolled up their sleeves in the 80-plus degree convention hall to construct our new booth.

Digital (one of our partners) donated to us at no cost eight Pentium Pro systems with monitors for our demo stations AND two Alpha 433 MHz workstations "just in case" and, even more impressive we arranged it so that the mouse pad at EVERY lab PC for the show (1,000 of them) were Obsydian mouse pads with the logo "Got NT BackOffice? -- Got Obsydian?" printed on them.

We have an INCREDIBLE presence here: one of the six largest booths at the show and Synon's logo is EVERYWHERE.

Here we are at the end of the first day of Tech Ed (which coincides with the last day of Fusion - Microsoft's conference exclusively for Solution Providers). As in the last two Common shows, we have Chef Michel (Mike Ehling) performing his Cooking With Obsydian act, but this time with a distinctly NT flavor.

It's hard to communicate in words alone what we are experiencing here. To put a few things in perspective:

All of the 8,000 Tech Ed attendees picked up their conference bags today which contained, among other things, a very high-quality one-page Obsydian brochure (the stylized and colorful "STOP coding, START architecting" one) and a very nice notepad with our SYNON logo emblazoned at the bottom. Every Tech Ed CD also had a 25Mb file containing multi-media of top Microsoft executives praising Synon and Obsydian (the same one that was also on the IUC CD).

Even though the booth was only open to the attendees for 2 1/2 hours today, we were swamped! Tomorrow we have three times as much time with attendees and an additional 2 hours exclusively with the press!

Synon is the ONLY tool vendor here for a hungry crowd. These are people who are currently developing applications for NT and are overwhelmed with what we have to offer them.

All of our demonstrations were packed and had more people standing around watching. This is even more impressive given that two booths over, Digital has a scale formula one race car with full 3-D simulator built in (& need I say this is a fairly geekish crowd that loves cool games).

Well, after the second full day of Tech Ed I'm running out of adjectives to describe the phenomenal response and excitement that we are experiencing here.

Today began with Keith Jaeger wowing Tech Ed audiences with his live demo of the Obsydian components running in a Viper (Microsoft Transaction Server) environment. Keith co-presented with Microsoft's Transaction Processor Architect, Pat Helland, in front of a crowd of over 1,500 NT developers. This was the only keynote presentation where a non-Microsoft employee was allowed on stage. In fact, Microsoft was hesitant to allow Keith to join them initially. However, at the conclusion of the presentation the crowd erupted into a spontaneous standing ovation and the result was that Pat insisted that Keith accompany him to France for the European Tech Ed in June!

The booth traffic today was in a word -- incredible. As usual, our presentations with Chef Michel were standing room only with at times crowds 6 deep standing around in the aisles. One thing that is impossible to miss is just how receptive this audience is to our message. This is an audience that is thirsty for a solution and has no pre-conceived notions of who Synon is. These guys are feeling the pain of developing in a C++, Sequel Server, VB, etc. environment and they like what we have to offer. Sometimes it's hard to tell who's more excited, us or them!

Well, we expected traffic today to be lighter than what we previously had experienced --- wrong! All of our presentations were packed once again (due, no doubt to the considerable talents of Chef Michel). Most presentations also had people standing 6 - 8 deep behind the chairs just to see what all the fuss was about.

The day concluded with an incredibly successful "wrap party" co-hosted by Synon at the Race Rock Cafe. Conference attendees had a ball and we had a chance to have casual conversations with the folks who will help us generate our next billion (lines of code, that is). The response to the party was the same as our booth "man, you guys really do things right!" By the way, there are a flood of really sharp Microsoft Certified Systems Engineers (MCSEs) just dying to work for us now.

Dear «FirstName» «LastName»,
«Company»
Club Lava Member # «MembershipID»

For those of you who have just been allocated a member #, welcome to Club Lava!
You will be pleased to know that you have made it as Charter members of Club Lava.
Charter Membership is now CLOSED!
Your status as a Charter Member identifies you as one of the original participants in a rapidly growing club of Obsydian professionals.
This is the second issue of LavaLights, Club Lava member's exclusive news and views e-mail.

In this issue we are doing a quick survey which will help us greatly in our development efforts
We would be most grateful if you could take the time to read the 2 questions carefully and please only reply where indicated.

I hope you enjoy this issue of LavaLights, please reply to this e-mail with your full name, company name and membership number with any comments or questions.

1) As you may have heard, Obsydian's group model repository is being ported to a relational database for R3.0. This is to allow better querying and reporting of group model contents as well as to provide for scaling of large enterprise group models. In addition, the move will allow Synon to move towards providing APIs and stronger impact analysis in Obsydian.

When R3.0 debuts, the initial RDBMS supported will be SQL Server on Windows NT. This means that your group models will have to be stored in SQL Server on Windows NT (Your local models and developers extracting from the group model do not have to be NT).

Please send a reply back to me at rwc@synon.com ONLY if you DO NOT intend to store your group models in SQL Server and NT and therefore will choose to wait for one of the other RDBMSs to be supported. Please also indicate which RDBMS you would prefer to store your group model in.

2) As of R2.5, Obsydian now has the capability of deploying both 16-bit and 32-bit applications from the same design model.

Please send a reply back to me at rwc@synon.com ONLY if you envisage that you will need to continue to support 16-bit apps after June 1998. Please also indicate how long you think you will have to continue to support and if appropriate deploy new functionality to the 16-bit environment.

Thank you for your time in replying to this survey, as leading edge Obsydian professionals your input will be taken very seriously and will help shape the future of the Obsydian product.

Dear «FirstName» «LastName»,
«Company»
Club Lava Member # «MembershipID»

In this third issue of LavaLights, Club Lava member's exclusive news and views e-mail, we would like to highlight some new exciting areas on Synon's WWW.
I hope you enjoy this issue of LavaLights, please reply to this e-mail with your full name, company name and membership number with any comments or questions.

Regards
Ramon Chen
Product Manager, Obsydian
Synon Inc.
http://www.synon.com/lavalounge

SYNPOSIUM is a great forum to mingle and chat with your peers about Synon and our products.
Pay a visit to SYNPOSIUM at http://www.synon.com/Synposium/default.htm and don't forget to make everyone envious by showing off your Club Lava number!

2) Remember when you enrolled, you were told that one of the benefits of being a Club Lava member was that you could be selected to be profiled for "Hot Rocks" (which will contain profiles of the hottest Obsydian projects on the planet). Well, if you have a live production application written in Obsydian, now is the time to gloat about it! Visit our Success Stories page at http://www.synon.com/Success/default.htm and fill in the form to be profiled. If we profile you, you'll receive a totally cool Synon Denim Shirt together with lots of other goodies! Don't forget to mention your Club Lava number when you apply!

Dear «FirstName» «LastName»,
«Company»
Club Lava Member # «MembershipID»

In this fourth issue of LavaLights, Club Lava member's exclusive news and views e-mail, I would like to draw your attention to some cool new stuff on the Lava Lounge.
I hope you enjoy this issue of LavaLights, please reply to this e-mail with your full name, company name and membership number with any comments or questions.

1) The development of the Obsydian Java Generator is in full swing and will soon be ready for beta. There is now a live working Obsydian generated Java demo on the web. In order to view the demo, you would ordinarily have to complete the survey form from the demo's page but as a valued Club Lava member here is the URL to bypass the form:

.2) The Lava Lounge has updated information about Obsydian R3.0. These are early highlights and considerations. Its all part of Synon's commitment to keep you informed of the latest developments so that you may make preparations and plans. As a Club Lava member I will be informing you directly when such information is available. In addition, you will also be able to participate in surveys (such as the one sent out in LavaLights Vol. 1 Issue 3) to get a sneak insight of the Obsydian product planning process.

As ever, please send me an e-mail at rwc@synon.com if you have any comments or suggestions about our little Java demo or questions about R3.0.

Dear «FirstName» «LastName»,
«Company»
Club Lava Member # «MembershipID»

In this fifth issue of LavaLights, Club Lava member's exclusive news and views e-mail, I am excited to report some breaking news which highlights the power of your input and Synon's ability to be instantly responsive to our customers.
I hope you enjoy this issue of LavaLights, please reply to this e-mail with your full name, company name and membership number with any comments or questions.

In LavaLights Vol 1 Issue 2 we posed the question about Microsoft's SQL Server and the storage of the group model in R3.0 in this RDBMS. We asked how many would wait for a subsequent RDBMS to be supported. The response from Club Lava members together with surveys and focus groups indicated to us that many of you would wait.

Given the feedback we received from you, Synon has determined that it would be best to move the group model RDBMS storage functionality to a release after R3.0. This will allow you to benefit from the wealth of functionality available in R3.0 without requiring an RDBMS.

By deferring the group model RDBMS storage functionality to a subsequent release and unifying the implementation with the scheduled local model RDBMS storage implementation, we will give you more time to plan for this eventual move. We also believe it will be easier for everyone concerned if both group and local models are addressed in the same release, rather than spreading the configuration and upgrade over two releases.

This will also afford us with the opportunity to extend our testing coverage to more ODBC databases in addition to SQL Server when RDBMS storage of group and local models is released.

This change is as a direct result of your feedback. It highlights the importance of Club Lava Members and once again shows Synon's ability to move quickly to adapt to changing market requirements and to be exceptionally responsive to the needs of our customers.

I hope you are encouraged by what has taken place, please send me e-mail at rwc@synon.com if you have any comments or questions.

Vol 1 Issue 6 - Obsydian R3.0 - VBX and 32-bit clients
Tues Sept 11, 1997 3:02 PM PST

Dear «FirstName» «LastName»,
«Company»
Club Lava Member # «MembershipID»

In this sixth issue of LavaLights, Club Lava member's exclusive news and views e-mail, I am pleased to give you an important heads up on the use of VBX controls in Obsydian R3.0.
I hope you enjoy this issue of LavaLights, please reply to this e-mail with your full name, company name and membership number with any comments or questions.

Note also that because you are a Club Lava member, you are getting this information before it appears on the Lava Lounge!

Obsydian 2.5 introduced the ability to create 32-bit clients. To allow you to take advantage of graphical controls, Obsydian 2.5 provided a special capability to embed VBXs (16-bit graphical controls) in those 32-bit clients.

The upcoming Obsydian 3.0 will allow you to take advantage of new ActiveX controls (32-bit graphical controls) as well as retaining support for VBX support in 16-bit clients.

Given this, the support for VBXs in 32-bit clients will be discontinued in R3.0, you will have to replace them with ActiveX controls.

* If you are using existing VBX APIs in Action Diagrams they will continue to work if you can find ActiveXs which have a) the same control name and b) the same property names as the existing VBX.

* Otherwise you will have to revisit those VBX APIs in those action diagrams and use new method APIs (provided in R3.0) to access the new ActiveX controls.

Note that our current research and testing indicates that many of the ActiveX control versions of current VBX's do have different property names so the second scenario appears to be the more likely of the two.

I hope you find this bulletin useful in your planning, please send me e-mail at rwc@synon.com if you have any comments or questions.

Special Development Survey- Class Libraries
Mon, September 29th 1997 11:33 PM PST

Synon development is considering a number of ways to deliver quantum leaps of functionality in the class libraries that we deliver. One option we would like to pursue is to partner with 3rd party vendors to deliver class library solutions that will make application development easier and successful for everyone. Before we proceed, the marketing team needs to gather some data on how viable this approach will be - so here's a quick survey. All respondents to this survey will be the first to sample the new UI class libraries

Synon is getting ready to re-sell new class libraries developed to enhance the UI characteristics of applications generated by Obsydian. These new class libraries will incorporate:
* Tree Controls - display records in tree form like Windows Explorer

These class libraries will make it easy to enhance new applications as well as existing applications. These class libraries are different - there's no 5250 variant which means that these libraries turn your applications into contemporary windows applications. Why code when you can re-use these flexible class libraries to provide the UI functionality you and your end-users are striving for.

5. What is the maximum amount (dollars or specify currency) you would be willing to pay ?

6. Would you pay more or less if these class libraries were developed by Synon ?

Please reply to this e-mail with your full name, company name and membership number with any comments or questions.
Thank you for being a Club Lava member!

Wasim Ahmad
Chief Evangelist
Developer Relations Group
Synon Corp.
wasima@synon.com
http://www.synon.com

Vol 1 Issue 7 - You can now update your profile online!
Tues, September 30th, 1997 3:01 PM PST

Dear «FirstName» «LastName»,
«Company»
Club Lava Member # «MembershipID»

In this seventh issue of LavaLights, Club Lava member's exclusive news and views e-mail, I am pleased to announce the capability for you to now view and update your Club Lava profiles.
I hope you enjoy this issue of LavaLights, please reply to this e-mail with your full name, company name and membership number with any comments or questions.

Update your Club Lava info and get registered for "Hot Rocks"
You can now update your Club Lava profile online.

1) To keep your e-mail address and details current to ensure uninterrupted supply of LavaLights

2) To have yourself and the project you are working on be considered for the first "Hot Rocks" interviews. We will be selecting and awarding denim shirts for the best and brightest projects out there.

3) To get your company info and address details updated, there are Club Lava goodies (Official t-shirts) for our most active Club Lava members on the way!

2) Enter your ID which is < XXXX > and your password has been set to < XXXX >(your last name). We recommend you change it once you log on.

Following suggestions we will also be setting up a Club Lava Gallery where we will display your picture (G-rated and tasteful please) so that you can feast your eyes on your fellow Club Lava members, send me your scanned pics (jpeg or gif) no larger than 100k please. There will also be a chance to vote on the best photo with a prize going to the winner.

Dear «FirstName» «LastName»,
«Company»
Club Lava Member # «MembershipID»

In this eight issue of LavaLights, Club Lava member's exclusive news and views e-mail, I'd like to tell you about the new information about Obsydian 3.0 scheduled to be available on the lava lounge. Also I am pleased to announce the second meeting of Club Lava members to be held October 14th at the European Users Conference in London England.

New information Obsydian 3.0 information will be available on the Lava Lounge including sneak peak screen captures of the NEW USERS INTERFACE! The information is due to be made public on the Lava Lounge Monday October 13th to coincide with the Synon European Users Conference in London, England.

Point your browser to http://www.synon.com/lavaLounge/TechnicalCorner/LavaLibrary/Obsydian_upcoming/ObsydianR30.htm

Club Lava members attending the European Users Conference come to our Club Lava session specially for you.

Club Lava to date has over 300 members! These members are leading edge Obsydian Professionals working on sophisticated Obsydian projects all over the World. As such, Club Lava members are privy to the latest Obsydian developments and are often solicited for their views and opinions on future features and enhancements. Attend this session hosted by key Obsydian development and marketing staff, to mingle with Club Lava members and get involved in a lively interactive discussion about Obsydian futures.

Come to the session and participate! Give me your name and membership ID and get a limited edition Club Lava Shirt!

Keep those pictures coming! The Club Lava Gallery will contain your pictures (G-rated and tasteful please) so that you can feast your eyes on your fellow Club Lava members. Please send me your scanned pics (jpeg or gif) no larger than 100k please. There will also be a chance to vote on the best photo with a prize going to the winner.

Please send me e-mail at rwc@synon.com with your full name, company name and membership number with any comments or questions. Thank you for being a Club Lava member!

Vol 1 Issue 9 - Obsydian 3.0 Presentation available for download
Tues Oct 21 1997 3:00 PM PST

Dear «FirstName» «LastName»,
«Company»
Club Lava Member # «MembershipID» Your password <<xxxxxx>>
Membership Level:

In this ninth issue of LavaLights, Club Lava member's exclusive news and views e-mail, I'd like to let you know that Shirley Foster's R3.0 presentation which was given at the European Users Conference is available for download at the Lava Lounge.

The captivating presentation by Shirley Foster containing a powerpoint presentation and AVIs of Obsydian 3.0 given at the recent Synon European Users Conference (EUC) in London, England is available for download.

Point your browser to http://webserver/lavalounge/TechnicalCorner/LavaLibrary/Obsydian_Presentations/ObsydianR30EUC97.ZIP

Or take the link off the main Lava Lounge page when it appears.
Note that it is zipped (unzip all contents into the same directory) and is quite large at around 2MB. Also if you are unable to run the AVIs then run the camcordr.exe in the zip file to install Microsoft Camcorder.

The second meeting of Club Lava members was also held at the EUC. With over 40 Club Lava members in attendance, limited edition t-shirts were handed out at the Club Lava session where members and interested onlookers discussed Obsydian product strategies and Synon's marketing and positioning of Obsydian.
Thank you to those of you who registered after attending the session. To date since the EUC we have had over 40 new registrations.

Argentina 1 Costa Rica 1 7 Australia 4 Austria 3 Belgium 2 Canada 9 China Croatia 1Denmark 10 Dominican Republic 1 DuPage 1 Finland 7 France 7 Germany 13 Honduras 1 India 1 Indonesia 1 Italy 2 Japan 1 Korea 1 Ljubljana 1 Mexico 1 Netherlands 12 New Zealand 3 Norway 5 Oneida 1 Panama 3 Peru 1 Pinellas 1 Poland 1 Portugal 5 South Africa 8 Spain 6 Sweden 14 Switzerland 7 Turkey 2 UK 54 USA 174

Also when you now login you will notice that you now have access to the section containing back issues of lavalights as well as the newly opened Club Lava Gallery. It was good to see all of you at the European Users Conference and welcome to our new members!

Please send me e-mail at rwc@synon.com with your full name, company name and membership number with any comments or questions. Thank you for being a Club Lava member!

In this tenth issue of LavaLights, Club Lava member's exclusive news and views e-mail, we'd like your opinion on Obsydian's documentation and help text and how you best feel we should focus our efforts.

The correlated results of this quick survey will be posted in Club Lava on the web so that you can see your fellow members' opnions. You're responses are collected automatically into a database by our survey software -- so your responses remain both confidential and anonymous.

Thank you in advance if you decide to participate, your time will help ensure that the Obsydian product continues to evolve to meet your growing needs.

Regards
Ramon Chen
Director, Products
Synon Inc.
http://www.synon.com/lavalounge

Please respond to this survey by hitting reply and answering the following questions. When you're done, please send the reply back. Thanks.

To respond to this survey, create a reply e-mail message that contains the survey. Some e-mail systems require you to manually copy and paste the survey into your reply. Make sure the reply contains the survey authentication marker.

To answer a question, type an x between the brackets, like this: [ x ]. For fill-in-the-blanks, type between the brackets like this: [ your response ]. Please make no other changes to this survey.

3. Did you or do you currently use the Tutorials and Samples on the CD extensively?

[ ] a) More examples and how to's built into the online help text
[ ] b) More improvements to the content of the current documentation CD
[ ] c) More tutorials and sample models

©1995-98 Synon Corporation. All rights reserved.
Synon and Obsydian are registered trademarks of Synon Corporation.
Other product and company names herein may be the trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Enjoy these back Issues of LavaLights! (Vol 1 Issue 1 to 10)