The 10-user license for the Diamond CM product establishes version control, includes a Windows-based programming editor, manages builds, and sets up audit trails. The product also includes Stargate, one of the first graphical user interface tools for HP 3000 system managers. Those managers can also use a software distribution facility in the product.

President Igor Yasno said he’s making the software available in order to establish a place for software configuration management tools in the MPE community.

“It’s an opportunity to offer something new to the HP 3000 developers,” Yasno said. “This has been a neglected community for such a long time.

“While we believe that our product (Diamond CM) offers a superior technology, we realize that the technical advantages alone are not enough in order to successfully compete against large, well known companies.” His other advantage in approaching the HP 3000 market is bundling a set of MPE-friendly tools.

“We have a very powerful Swiss Army knife with different blades available,” he said. “Software developers can improve the quality of their software projects and do their work better and faster. Managers can be assured they won’t compromise the security of their software, and they have a complete history of all changes being made.”

The free license offer doesn’t include support, which is available for $3,370 a year. Additional seats are available at $2,250 each, and a seat will be taken up by each host system plugged into Diamond CM’s suites. Finally, a Unix or Windows NT server is required to store the configuration management database which tracks changes and versions.

However, the product operates on more than just Windows clients. It includes a Java interface to let programming teams work with clients such as Unix workstations or Macintosh systems. Yasno said the product also integrates with existing programming editors such as Whisper Technologies’ Whisper Programmer Studio and Robelle’s Qedit.

At Wellington Management in Boston, the product is serving more than 50 programmers developing MPE code. Wellington is releasing as many as 120 programs a day with the product, including changed programs.

“The biggest plus is the audit trails,” said supervisor of production control Jim Harding, a 19-year veteran of HP 3000s. Code at Boston’s third-largest financial management firm can be easily rolled back to a prior version if problems appear in a new release. “It’s intelligent enough to use scripts to copy a file from a production system to a backup system and our Year 2000 machine.” Harding said programmers at Wellington are using HPEDIT, Qedit, Quad and the included editor with Diamond CM.

Yasno said a company that’s just implementing Diamond CM needs only to eliminate read and write access to source code groups to get started. There’s no lock-in through proprietary data structures. DOS will install the product at no cost as well.