Message-Id: <9511271922.AA07641@dit.MIT.EDU>
To: dcns-dev@MIT.EDU
Cc: alexp@MIT.EDU
Subject: FYI
Date: Mon, 27 Nov 1995 14:22:51 EST
From: Alex T Prengel <alexp@MIT.EDU>
Content-Length: 9968


This may be of some interest.

                               Alex
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Date: Mon, 27 Nov 1995 12:07:14 -0500
From: info@centerline.com
Message-Id: <9511271707.AA15772@idol>
To: alexp@MIT.EDU
Subject: Product Announcement

                      CENTERLINE SOFTWARE, INC.            9293
                    SOLUTIONS FOR ON TIME QUALITY

NEW PRODUCT ANNOUNCEMENT
QC/Recall* -- an innovative post-deployment tool to help you quickly isolate and repair failures in mission critical Xt/Motif * applications

Dear CenterLine Customer,

Because you are a valued CenterLine customer, we wanted to make sure you were one of the first to hear the news!  CenterLine is pleased to introduce the newest addition to our QualityCenter family of quality automation tools, QC/Recall -- an innovative post-deployment tool to help you quickly isolate and repair failures in mission-critical Xt/Motif applications.

Have you ever tried to figure out, "What was the user doing?" when your application misbehaved in the field?  Or have you ever wondered, "Are the users really interacting with the GUI the way I thought they would?"   It soon becomes the responsibility of both the support and engineering department to reproduce and fix the problems as quickly as possible to minimize the user downtime.  

QC/Recall was designed specifically to isolate and reproduce these inevitable defects that surface in your deployed software applications.   QC/Recall will enable you to keep your mission-critical Motif software up and running, reducing downtime, lowering support and maintenance costs, and improving the application availability.

QC/Recall lets you:

%  Non-intrusively monitor your deployed, mission critical software
%  Get detailed log files of all user activity -- all mouse and keyboard events
%  Provide data to isolate and reproduce bugs 10X faster
%  Replay defects precisely as your users see them
%  Improve user satisfaction through faster turnaround and less downtime 

To give you a quick glance at QC/Recall, attached you'll find a copy of the recent press announcement that was released on November 6, 1995.   In addition, feel free to take a look at CenterLine's new home page (http://www.centerline.com) to get up-to-date information on QC/Recall, and while you are there, take a look at our new on-line newsletter -- CenterLine OnLine.

If you'd like to get immediate details on QC/Recall, please call us directly at 1-617-498-3000  and ask for your sales representative.  Also be sure to ask about the Exclusive Introductory Customer Offer --  discount valid through December 31, 1995 for existing CenterLine customers only.

Thank you for your continued business and interest in CenterLine's solutions for on-time quality.

Sincerely, 
Jim Cannon
Vice President of Sales    

P.S.    Call 1-617-498-3000 or send email to info@centerline.com today for more information about our exclusive QC/Recall introductory offer for customers only!


- ----------------------------PRESS RELEASE----------------------------------


Contact:  Jill Godett                       Laura Desmarais
CenterLine Software, Inc.                   Beaupre & Co. Public Relations, Inc.
617-498-3287                                603-436-6690
godett@centerline.com                       desmarai@beaupre.mv.com


CenterLine Software cuts the cost, time and pain of fixing software defects 
in deployed mission-critical applications 

New addition to QualityCenter* family helps corporate developers find 
software bugs up to 10 times faster 

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., November 6, 1995  -- To help corporate developers pinpoint the cause of software crashes or malfunctions in deployed applications, CenterLine(  Software, Inc. today unveiled QC/Recall*, a new kind of quality automation tool that significantly reduces the cost, time and pain of finding and fixing software bugs in mission-critical production software.

By monitoring and capturing information about how a user was interacting with an application when it failed, QC/Recall provides developers and support groups with a comprehensive log file of all user actions, enabling them to isolate bugs up to 10 times faster. Developers can then use CenterLine's QC/Replay* -- a graphical user interface (GUI) capture/playback tool integrated with QC/Recall -- to execute the log file to recreate the failure. 

QC/Recall is the latest in CenterLine's family of new QualityCenter quality automation tools -- unveiled over  recent months -- that enables companies to implement solutions for delivering high-quality applications on-time.

"More organizations are becoming increasingly dependent on software applications to run their business. QC/Recall will enable these companies to quickly isolate and repair system defects -- minimizing costly downtime and increasing the value of strategic business applications,"  said Hugh Bishop, director of emerging technologies research at Aberdeen Group.  "QC/Recall builds on CenterLine's QualityCenter family of tools, extending the company's strategy for improving software quality throughout the development lifecycle."

Designed specifically for UNIX( -based, X Window/Motif* applications, QC/Recall is distinguished by a non-intrusive design that does not impose performance penalties on the user's application. Instead of using CPU-consuming methods such as video screen shots or complex binary files, QC/Recall logs user behavior, including every keystroke and mouse click, and stores the information in files for easy retrieval by support staff. This non-intrusive design is particularly important for companies running mission-critical applications, such as financial trading organizations, where lengthening a trader's reaction time can often mean financial loss for a company.

"Reproducing software defects is often the hardest part of resolving a software crash. The longer a mission-critical application is down, the more the company will pay the price. Developers need tools that will enable them to find the quickest route to identifying the real problem,"  said Paul Henderson, vice president of marketing at CenterLine Software. "Using QC/Recall, developers can find software bugs easier than ever before, fix them and quickly get the application back out to the users. " 

The Three  "R's"  of QC/Recall

Using QC/Recall, developers can effectively answer the key question following a software crash or malfunction:  "What were you doing when it happened?"  While support staff need to know all the events surrounding a failure, users often unintentionally omit steps they took, give vague information following a crash, or simply were not present when it happened, making it difficult for developers to find the problem. Using the three "R's" of QC/Recall -- record, recreate and repeat -- developers can gather the information they need, and solve and verify the problem faster than with traditional tools and methods.

...Record
QC/Recall records how the application was used when the system failed.  QC/Recall records valuable information such as which windows are being accessed, which keyboard shortcuts are employed, data the user entered and where most of the user's time is being spent. Developers can retrieve log files from internal or external user sites -- over LANs, WANs and the Internet -- and analyze the events leading up to the crash. This information enables developers to pinpoint the problem and apply a solution immediately.

...Recreate
To recreate the events that led to a system crash or failure, QC/Recall enables developers to play back log file scripts using QC/Replay. By running the scripts through QC/Replay, developers can reproduce the software bug on their own workstation and receive accurate information about the crash.  Armed with this information, developers can use their existing diagnostic and debugging tools to identify and correct the problem. 

...Repeat
Once a software bug is fixed, developers can add the log file scripts to their standard regression suites and use QC/Replay to repeat their solution.  By performing regression tests based on the log files, developers can ensure problems that were corrected do not recur as future enhancements and modifications are incorporated.

Availability and pricing

QC/Recall will be available from CenterLine and its authorized distributors worldwide on SunOS, Solaris/SPARC and HP UX platforms in December 1995. IBM AIX, Digital UNIX, Silicon Graphics and Unixware platforms will be supported in early 1996. QC/Recall is sold on a per-user basis and is available at volume discounts. A 100-user license for example, is priced at U.S. $350 list per user.

CenterLine Software, Inc., a privately held corporation headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., is a leading independent provider of quality automation solutions for professional developers. CenterLine offers a complete suite of tightly integrated, open and standards-based solutions including C and C++ programming environments and testing tools, as well as education, development, training and consulting services. The sponsor of CenterStage*, the premier independent software vendor partner program, CenterLine joins forces with major tools vendors to deliver value-added integrations spanning
the entire software development lifecycle.

				###

CenterLine is a registered trademark and QualityCenter, QC/Recall, QC/Replay and CenterStage are trademarks of CenterLine Software, Inc. All other marks are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

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