logo_pcmagAware IM offers an extremely powerful platform for developers – PC Magazine

Don’t take our word on how good Aware IM is. See what our customers have to say

I have had quite the history with Magic software. Since 1989 I have been the Magic Software distributor in New Zealand and Australia. Since then I have sold Magic to over 200 software houses, three universities, and worked with companies from almost every sector of the economy. As well as this I have trained over 150 developers in using Magic. It is safe to say that with Magic Software I know what I am talking about.

We had a good run for about 20 years, but in 2010 we begun to feel some pain.

Around this time it had become apparent that customers now wanted a SaaS based application. As well as this the cost structure of Magic Software was too clunky; we were unable to be nimble enough to provide a cost-effective solution to help small to medium sized businesses.

We were now faced with a big question:

How do we put a HTML based front-end on our Magic applications?

We had three options:

1) We could use a front end tool working with Magic broker. My reservations with this option were around reliability. I could imagine having uptime issues with Magic broker. For this reason we ruled out this option.

2) We could work with Magic’s new Angular JS front end. The problem here is that to do so would require a large redirection of resources to becoming experts in .NET and Angular JS. The prospect of this made us feel uneasy as a company we have always wanted to focus our energy on delivering applications to our clients and solving real business problems. As well as this, in our option, it was unlikely that the new Magic front end tool would be truly ready for us to use for a while to come. For these reasons combined this option was unattractive to us.

3) The final options was for us to use a new tool that would give us an ability to manage both the front and the back end of development. We would also need this tool to also be able to integrate with our existing Magic back end. This was the option we ended up going with – and it has been a decision that has paid of handsomely.

We ended up looking around and exploring around 15 different options. After a while it was clear that Aware IM was the right solution for us. The central reason for us choosing this was that it was a SaaS based tool that allowed fantastic speed of development.

Once we had made our decision it was now time to work out how to execute a safe migration from Magic to Aware IM. The following are the features and methods we used for successful migration:

  1. Magic and Aware IM can both read the same tables.
  2. Aware IM can write data into a table and then Magic can read that table and from that work out what program to run.
  3. Soap request.
  4. Rest request.

We then deployed Aware IM on a different virtual server to the database and to Magic. All this was done on the same network.

We then mapped all the external tales in Aware IM. Aware IM can access database tables in native or external mode. Aware IM can access database tables in native or external mode. Both modes have their benefits therefore we worked with both. this results in creating dedicated tables to run in Aware IM native mode – this has paid off big time for us.

Every time we had a need to call a Magic program we would run with point two (above), however in some instances it made more sense to run with point four: rest request. Rest between the tools is great and has worked well for us.

All of this has allowed us to introduce Aware IM safely and slowly. We have been able to move to a more productive, nimble, and effective engine of development. Looking back, it is one of the best decisions we have ever made. It allows us to deploy multi-tenant applications in a profitable way. Thanks to Aware IM we feel excited by the new business opportunities now open to us.

As a multimedia developer, I am constantly assessing, purchasing and learning new software packages. I can honestly say that I have never come across such dedicated, responsive and knowledgeable support in the past, I am extremely impressed!With respect to your software, I have had an opportunity to assess it extensively and have just purchased the Pro version. The combination of features, functionality and performance open up a whole new set of opportunities for our company. Your continuous development process and schedule releases has me very excited for the future.
Pete Bradstreet , Creative Interface

Building the POBITS system presented many challenges. The system would be complex and needed to be highly organized to manage hundreds of business objects.  Besides just providing lists and forms to manage data, we needed a built-in notification capability to generate email notifications and an organic report generator to build a report as complex as the Personal History Statement. Because the system would be used by thousands of average users who may have minimal computing experience, the system had to present a simple and standardized user interface. We also needed a built-in access control system to manage the many types of users in different roles that would be using the system.

Secondly, we had to consider time to market and maintainability. Basically, we went from install to hello world in just a few minutes and were immediately “aware” that this tool had potential well beyond any other technologies we were considering for the project. We estimate that about 40% of the base product was developed during our 30-day trial of the software.

Another exceptional aspect of Aware IM is that it allows the developer to focus on business requirements and build out from those concepts. For example, we don’t have to think about databases, tables, and indexes. Rather, we consider business objects, attributes, and their relationships.

To underscore the point of Aware IM’s power, the POBITS system was developed by a single developer and put into user testing within six months. Oh yeah, and the developer had a full-time job outside of this project!

Developers and non-developers looking for a tool to produce high-quality business applications should look no further

Kingsley Klosson, Essential Software Development, LLC, www.pobits.com

All of the content on eduvendorstars.com is created using Aware IM. The owners can add Categories, Services, Vendors, etc. The Categories and Services are served up as the Menu option throughout the site which are the result of an SQL stored procedure that generates the proper html syntax. Vendor data is fairly complex and can include data elements that are spread across about a dozen tables (related data). Vendors can purchase a subscription (5 levels) that give them increasing amounts of data elements that can be presented. They can login and manage their own data.

All of the backend data created in Aware IM is then made available to pages in WordPress because of REST calls in PHP from the page. Incremental search was created using Aware IM to output the properly formatted JSON files and included JS files to manage the DOM.

Everything is very seamless and the owners are thrilled. We delivered this in about 6 months development effort. They have plans for us to enhance over the next three years.

Working out the complexities of this project with the awesome power of Aware IM and SQL server have been a real joy! Hope to get more contracts for a similar architecture.

Robin Prinzing, IS Vision Pro

We have been using Aware IM for nearly a year. I am really loving the product and I have been very impressed with the support.I am truly amazed that a department manager can create and publish a multiuser, web based, database driven application with limited programming skills.We have been using the product to manage a multi-million dollar service business. With minimal effort, Aware IM has allowed us to streamline our business process and reduce costs. Both the product and support have far exceeded my expectations.

This is a very different paradigm in application development. Coming from a language like Delphi or Ext JS where there are thousands different properties, methods, controls, etc. etc. that you have to learn, BUT are very procedural, when you come to Aware IM, your mind might start working like this: 1). YEA! with only 30-40 actions, I can learn all of these, and be an expert in NO time 2). DARN! Where, on which menu, did they hide the option for ???? 3). HELP! I am not really sure where to put my “Rules” and do not know when they will be triggered. 4). WOW, with relationships in the application design, a properly designed system just takes care of itself. 5). BLISS when you finally “GROK” the entire AWARE environment and see that very complicated application logic just flows together. 6) BIG GRIN when discovering that Aware is like your junior programmer who always does the low level stuff for you, (creating tables, renaming, altering attributes, controlling security, access, designing menus, etc.) while you can just focus on the big picture It won’t be overnight, but trust me on this, you will NEVER wanna go back to work with other tools.

Bruce Lomasky

Thanks to Aware IM, I was able to design and create a program to allow our 430 students to evaluate each of their class/teacher combination (6 – 8 teachers for each student). Each student answered about 20 objective questions and two open response questions for each class / teacher as well . Each teacher did a self evaluation answering the same questions. The school principal also performed an evaluation of each teacher answering identical questions. Aware IM made it easy to control the entire process … from allowing proctors to turn on/off access for each group of students to accumulate the results for the principal & teachers to see the aggregated results. Student / class / teacher information was imported into Aware IM from a third party school management system to allow a each question process to be customized to each student. All told, there were about 80,00 data points that were gathered and accumulated very efficiently and effectively by Aware IM. It could never have been accomplished in the same amount of time without Aware IM. The principal and superintendent of the school said “this process will be institutional changing

We have been using Aware IM for the past 7 years and it has evolved rapidly. The product is simply superb and we are amazed with its capabilities. Application development was never so rapid for us and now, we are also quick in making deliveries on time. For us, it’s a new definition of SDLC. Our customers are happy and my staff says “I AM AWARE” when they use Aware IM.”

Manoj Pipersania , CEO/Founder SoftServ Solutions

I have been developing specialised software applications using various platforms of development for more than 15 years. One year ago I came across Aware IM and suddenly all my wishes came true in relation to my development needs…. three months into the project we reached a point where the application that took me more than 8 years to develop in Filemaker was complete, fully functional and exceeded the previous implementation both in deployment capability, ease of access, interface design and features.

Codrin Mitin , Idronic

We’ve been searching for and testing various Rapid Application Development (RAD) candidates for the last 12 months. In this time we’ve seriously trialled both Wakanda and WaveMaker and built test Apps using both of them. Both of these tools were (and are) impressive but fell short in some critical capacities that we needed when we starting building ‘real Apps’. I do have to admit they both have more attractive ‘configuration’ UI’s than Aware IM and I think that might help them in terms of initial take up. But their UI is the only win I can give them over AwareIM. Once you get the hang of how AwareIM works and discover how complete it is you realize how superficial the initial UI ‘look and feel’ comparison is.

Dave Tehan , Union Systems