Expert: Scottgem - 10/24/2006

Question
Javelin Plus was impressive enough for Oracle to buy it and subsequently "kill" it.  Subsequently Lotus came up with Lotus Approach apparently "imitating Javelin in the Windows enviroment.  Today, the nearest you get is Quantrix, but then Quantrix does not have the built in time intuitive, financial functions like Javelin, such that whereas Quantrix users find it fantastic, previous Javelin users like me lament that it does not even come close.

I was a power user of Symphony myself, but for different purposes, and Javelin is not to be compared with Symphony or Framework because they are of totally different genre.

How do I describe how fantastic Javelin was? Lets see:  You typically start from one of the many views (worksheet view, tables view, formula view, graph view, errors view, etc), and the easiest is to start with a worksheet where the rows and columns are not pre-named in alphabets or numbers.  So if you name the columns "Sale-Qty", "Sales-Turnover", the rows "Jan-06", "Feb-06",...., and the corner top left hand "US".  And then you fill in the intersecting cells with figures e.g 1,910, Javeln automatically creates formulae e.g. US-Sales-qty-Jan-06=1,910, etc.

Now if you type in on the left of the row "1Q-06", the cells will automatically sum up the first three months of the year 2006 the figures for the sales-qty, sales-turnover, etc. If you delete the row "Jan-06", the figures in the cells disappear, and they reappear is you re-types in the left of the row"Jan-o6" or any other date, the correct figures.  The core you see, is a database.

If you place your cursor on one of the cells and press a function key for quick-chart, a chart appears immediately showing the trend over time. You can creat various worksheets to display various figures for various purposes without having to re-key in the figures.  

You can create different models of the same structure for various countries for example, and use the roll-up function to consolidate figures into a region of countries.  There are many more features which I can't do justice to explain to you. Some previous books on the software are good sources of its capabilities. To say that a software that is defunct now is therefore proof of it was not amazing enough is perhaps not doing justice to the software.  

I do not need to convince you.  Like I mentioned, my original intention was to get hold of the program in CD form (original program was in 5.5" floppies), and it was your un-qualified comments about the software that irked me.

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Well, Scott, I asked in my original question where I could get a copy of this software in a CD,not for for your comments about the software. Let just say that, about Javelin Plus, I know what you obviously do not! Knowing about the software through reviews,literature, wikepedia etc, and knowing the software, having used it, are two different things, obviously.  Sorry if I insulted you.

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Well, be honest enough to say you haven't seen this software at all.  If you have that would not have been your answer.  Many fantastic softwares were just killed by the sheer momentum of windows. Don't pretend to be an expert in things that you do not know!
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I used to use this software a lot in the days od DOS. Do you know where I can get a copy of this software in a CD, as I would like to show my class what an amazing software already existed in 1990 which until today no other software has been able to come close to.
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I vaugely recall Javelin and don't recall it being that amazing. What do you recall was so amazing about it?

Anyway, it appears to be defunct, apparently wasn't amazing enough to make the transistion to Windows.

HTH
Scott<>
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Excuse me, but if I didn't recall the software at all, I WOULD have said so. I am not pretending to be anything. From what I recall of Javelin it was a multi-function integrated program similar to Ashton Tate's Framework and Lotus Symphony. It used a spreadsheet type interface while storing data in a more database like format. The idea being to use the spreadsheet's easier business analysis functionality to the managing lots of data. it got good reviews, but never made much of an inroad on the more popular packages like Symphony.

I asked you what you thought was so fantastic about it. Rather than answering you chose to attempt to insult me.
Again, I don't pretend to be something I'm not. If I didn't recall the software at all I would have said so.

Scott<>


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And what I did was do a search to see if I could find any outlets that had the software. I will admit I didn't doi an exhaustive search, but what I did do, indicated the software and the company was defunct. Hence my answer to your question was valid.

A part of most of the jobs I have had has been keeping aware of the state of the art on software so I can offer the people I support the best solutions. As such I often got to try a large number of software packages. I also had to to keep abreast of reviews and other people's experiences. I believe I did try Javelin at a time when I was evaluating integrated packages like Framework and Symphony. I do not recall being greatly impressed by any special features.

What might impress you might not impress me. Again, I asked what you felt was so fantastic about it and you still haven't given me a clue. I'm sure it has some features that met specific needs of yours like no other software you encountered. Obviously those needs were not enough to garner it a strong enough following to induce the authors to continue developing it.

One of my favorite apps was Lotus Agenda. It was a free form database that was amazing to use. It could do things that no other app I have ever seen could. Unfortunately, it required a certain mindset to understand how to use it and not many people seemed to have that mindset. So it died.

I don't dispute that an active user know more about a product then soemone who has read reviews or even used it just to evaluate it. Again, that's why I asked for why you found it fantastic. But that doesn't mean someone with only a passing familiarity can't compare it to other packages.

Scott<>

Answer
Actually Approach was a separate product that Lotus purchased. And it was nothing like you describe for Javelin. Approach is more akin to Microsoft Access than anything else.

But, yes, what you describe is pretty much what I remember about Javelin. Allowing the user to do business analysis by creating views that generated the calcs to present them. I think one of the reasons it didn't make it was because it didn't fit the relational data model that was and is the standard for storing large amounts of data.  

Anyway, the bottomline is that the software went defunct before the CD age. So I doubt if you will find and viable versions.

HTH
Scott<>