Unveiled today, Alpha Five Version 8 gives programmers, power users, consultants, ISVs, and IT shops alike a powerful, unified, end-to-end development environment unsurpassed in its ability to generate robust, scalable, portable applications that target virtually every major platform—including Web 2.0, SaaS (software as a service), distributed enterprise, client-server, SQL database, and the Windows desktop.

            “Companies want to build Web applications and services, but as they get into it, they realize it’s much more expensive and time consuming than they initially imagined,” says Richard Rabins, Co Chairman  of Alpha Software Inc., in Burlington, Mass. “The existing languages and tools are complex, time-consuming, and surprisingly hard to debug and maintain. We’ve created a platform that lets people rapidly build professional, secure, great-looking Web 2.0 apps with fully-formatted reporting that work with any SQL database—from the desktop to the data center—and are easy to update and maintain. We have delivered the first true RAD platform for Web 2.0.”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

l  PORTABILITY: Portable SQL, a true industry breakthrough that allows SQL source code to work with any enterprise database—unchanged! Alpha Five Version 8 introduces Portable SQL, a standards-compliant SQL implementation that enables database developers to build once, and deploy anywhere—without having to change one line of their SQL code. For the first time in computing history, developers, consultants, ISVs, solution providers, and enterprise IT teams can migrate from one SQL database to another with virtually no code changes, dramatically boosting application ROI. Portable SQL automatically adapts its syntax to the database it connects to, including Oracle, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, IBM DB2, InterSystems’ Cache, and even Microsoft Access and Excel!

l  REPORTING: An integrated Report Builder that makes querying and publishing sophisticated reports on the Web push-button easy. There’s never been a database application built that didn’t need reporting. Yet virtually no popular programming platform provides rich reporting tools. Instead, programmers manually code reports, use costly third-party add-ins, or settle for ugly tabular output reminiscent of the mainframe era. That all ends today with Alpha Five Version 8, and its seamlessly integrated Report Builder which generates crisp, stylish reports that bring data to life, and put it on the Web.

l  SECURITY: A comprehensive Web Security Framework protects applications and data from unauthorized access. Embedded into the RAD platform, Alpha Five’s new Web Security Framework makes defining and managing application access painless for developers and administrators alike. Access rights can be set for users, groups, and even individual pages, using a graphical Security Settings control panel. No coding is required. Rights are then used by Alpha Five to determine what parts of an application people or processes are permitted to see. Rights can also be set to allow or prevent data from being viewed, entered, or changed. Alpha Five’s Web Security Framework even handles administrative details automatically, such e-mailing lost user names or passwords to users. And the RAD platform’s Login Component Builder automatically generates the required program source code to create login dialogs.

            That’s just for starters. Alpha Five Version 8 is the most extensive upgrade in Alpha Software’s 25 year history. Over 1,000 new features and technologies have been developed, tested, integrated, and brought to market in order to establish Alpha Five Version 8 as the world’s first end-to-end RAD IDE for the Web 2.0 era. A complete list of Alpha Five Version 8’s features is available to the media at  http://alphasoftware.com/AlphaFive/ProductTour/. Customer testimonials, customer and analyst references, a FAQ, and more press resources are also available to the media on demand.

            “From the desktop to the data center to World Wide Web, Alpha Five Version 8 is the one tool that can do it all, and make it all seem easy,” says Selwyn Rabins, Co-Chairman of Alpha Software, and the creative force behind the company’s dedicated team of programmers who brought Alpha Five Version 8 from vision to reality. “Our vision has always been to empower more developers to do more things for more people, using one simple yet powerful tool. With the debut of Alpha Five Version 8, we have fully realized that vision, to the great benefit of developers everywhere. Now no developer will have to struggle to keep up with Web 2.0. All they need is Alpha Five!”

All Alpha Five Version 8 products are available now. Fully-functional trial versions can be downloaded at http://alphasoftware.com/trial/. Alpha Five Version 8 Professional Edition retails for $340 + GST. Upgrades for registered users cost $244 + GST. Alpha Five Version 8 Enterprise Edition is $477 + GST, or $340 + GST for upgrades. Alpha Five Application Server Basic is $544 + GST, or $408 + GST for upgrades. Alpha Five Application Server Enterprise is $954 + GST, or 681 + GST for upgrades. The Alpha Five Version 8 runtime starts at $681 + GST, or $544 + GST as an upgrade. A complete product and feature comparison is available at http://www.alphasoftware.com/products/.

For product orders visit http://a1software.net/shop or contact Mike Thomson on 1300 792270.

Since 1982, Alpha Software has been providing developers of all experience levels with award-winning tools and technologies that make it easy to rapidly build robust database and business applications. Today over one million developers rely on Alpha Software’s flagship platform, Alpha Five, to build desktop, client-server, distributed, and Web 2.0 applications for organizations of any size—from SOHO to the Fortune 100. Every day, tens of millions of people and businesses rely on applications built in Alpha Five. With the introduction of Alpha Five Version 8 in 2007, Alpha Software sets new standards for speed of development, portability, reporting, and security for database applications of all stripes. The company is privately held, and based in Burlington, Mass. Alpha Software can be found on the Web at http://www.AlphaSoftware.com.

Comprehensive resources are available for this story, including executive interviews, industry sources, analyst contacts, supporting documentation, and more. Please contact us if you need more information or resources.

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