The 2005 Summer Party started gently in the new Muziekgebouw on the Ij next to Amsterdam Central Station, and continued on the Supper Club Cruise Ship, where shoes were discarded and food was served on a huge bed stuffed with hundreds of pillows. The transvestite cabaret singer was a picture in pink, the German massage girl had an iron grip, and the cushion fight rounded the evening off in classy style.
 
10-03-2005: Niels Groeneveld joins Companion

Companion has been strengthened by the arrival of Niels Groeneveld, who will primarily be responsible for contact with clients, particularly during Barbara's pregnancy leave. Niels does not have a specific background in the IT consultancy world, but has plenty of experience when it comes to customer contact and contract negotiations. Welcome Niels :-)
 
07-03-2005: Launch of Legacy Renewal Solution

Computer Associates have announced the availability of its Legacy Renewal Solution, a knowledge-based service that automates the conversion of legacy COBOL applications to J2EE, .NET and Web services without rewriting source code. If it does what they say it can do, it could dramatically increase the sales potential of AllFusion Gen, and provide an interesting foot-in-the-door for new clients. Read more about it here...
 
10-12-2004: Xmas party: "Bowling for Companion"

Bison Bowling may sound like sort of weird extreme sport played by bored cowboys, but it was in fact the location for the 2004 Xmas party. A bowling alley with all the trappings of the deepest jungle, including hanging vines and monkey calls, followed by dinner in Loenen aan het Vecht. No-one can say that this Christmas "do" wasn't a classy affair! Not wanting to diminish Anwer's achievement of winning the bowling trophy, there was simply no credible opposition to Anwer's measured approach. We are sure the trophy will proudly adorn his mantlepiece for years to come.
 
14-10-2004: Companion run riot .... again

For the third time in row the Companion IT Services 5-a-side football team took on the Sharing All Stars, and for the third time we ran out deserved victors. This time the tally was 10-5, with a rampant Companion team showing the enthusiastic but frankly dissapointing boys from the ING how to pass a ball and where the goal is. We wait for the next challenge from our banking bretheren, perhaps they should try their luck with table football ;-)
 
24-06-2004: CABiNET meeting in Eindhoven

Companion attended a buoyant CABiNET meeting (the Dutch Gen user group) in the futuristic Evoluon center in Eindhoven. Although the building looks like a set out of a Buck Rogers film, the inside is wall-to-wall luxury, and nothing from the 1970s in sight whatsoever. The presentations were varied and interesting, including one by Edwin Hendricks of Logica CMG, who compared the single data-model approach to a twin data-model approach (implementation/specification) frequently used in CBD projects. Not surprisingly, to us at least, was that in a vast majority of cases, a single data-model approach was far cheaper, even bearing in mind long-term maintenance costs. A review of the day with the presented papers can be found here.

 
27-05-2004: Welcome AllFusion Gen

What's in a name? Quite a lot, apparently. Advantage Gen is no more, gobbled up whole within the AllFusion brand, within the Life Cycle Tools area. According to CA this is a very positive step for the product, given the much larger development and marketing budget afforded the showcase AllFusion line. We will wait and see, but first signs are positive.
 
05-03-2004: Market update

It has been a tough few years in the Advantage Gen market, and the perhaps it's good to sit back and take a look at where we are and what the future might bring.

Firstly in the US, the Gen market of all, there was a major dip in the mid- to late- 1990's. The backbone of the US market - the large block mode mainframe sites - did not adopt the latest IEF client/server offerings, with quite the same gusto as their continental European counterparts. The American market, dominated by governmental agencies, was either more cautious or more sceptical about client/server in general, and negative about the IEF implementation of it in particular. Remember back then how everyone said IEF would die out because the window design possibilities were far more limited than the equivalent in Powerbuilder or Visual Basic..... As far as I know, the US market has never really recovered from this time, and although there still seems to be several active sites in the States, new clients are either thin on the ground or non-existent depending on who you believe. On the bright side however, there are still a number of large US Advantage Gen users who show no signs of stopping. What does seem to be lacking is the newer technology jobs - browser based applications for example.

In Europe, the picture is somewhat different. Although the UK pattern followed the US with a dip in the late 1990s, various government agencies seem to have steam-rollered ahead with Gen use, mostly when prompted by EDS, and there are several large sites still keeping many an old IEF dinosaur gainfully employed. New technology is also evident, although not to the extent seen in Europe and the rest of the world. In Europe, several companies continue to press on with large scale WCE applications built in either wholly in Advantage Gen or with Java Proxies. Some companies do seem to be heading towards the package solutions/SAP route, which is perhaps a natural progression in a time of bad trading conditions - cut costs, and reduce functionality. When the upturn in the market happens, there will be more money available for bespoke applications, and that's where Advantage Gen comes back into it's own.

Nevertheless, the tool's durability has to be applauded. Software that was predominately designed back in the days of DOS, IBM XTs and New Romantics is still considered a serious player on the application development stage. The fundamental principles behind the model-driven development with code generation was way ahead of it's time in the 1980s, and in that respect CA do not seem to appreciate the Ace in their pack. The price of Advantage Gen remains of course a contentious issue, and it prices itself out of the market for all but the biggest of IT departments. Where it is very strong is in providing existing Gen users with a viable route to bridge from one architecture and technology to another. For all the hype, it is really true that with relatively little effort it is possible to convert an existing block mode application into a browser based one, without much of the Java/Internet skills which would otherwise be required.

Synopsys: In the European market, jobs are finally coming back after 3 years on the slide. Rates are still at a worryingly low level, which is in part a natural market reaction to the fact for the last 2 years there has been more supply for Gen skills than demand. Nevertheless, if the current job trend continues, rates will also rise towards the end of this year. Personally I think that a lot hangs on the general health of the world economy - if big companies start to earn lots of money then they will be more inclined to go for an all-encompasing tool like Advantge Gen. However while the economy remains weak, companies will find cheaper ways to achieve their limited goals, and Advantage Gen will not be first choice. All in all, there are signs for optimism, but we are not out of the woods yet. The next 2 years will be make-or-break.....

Don't forget, you heard it here first :-)
 
18-12-2003: Going Japanese!

2003's Xmas party was held in a Japanese restaurant, and included a Sushi workshop. Taught by the nimble fingered but mute chef Yori, the evening was a gourmatic "tour de force", combining fun and frivolity with simply the best cuisine that the land of the rising sun has to offer. After the "Sushi Challenge" we all relaxed and enjoyed the splendid Teppanyaki grill on offer.

 
17-11-2003: Edge conference a rip roaring success

Once again the Edge EMEA conference was a great success, this year with the setting of the fair city of Barcelona. Held in the fabulously appointed Hilton Hotel basement, 250 guests and exhibitors managed to make this a very cosy event, and there were plenty of very interesting sessions about various Advantage Gen topics. CA proved their commitment to the Advantage product line once again by turning up in force and assuring us all that they are putting their money where their mouth is.
David Silsbury delivered a wonderful roller-coaster of a presentation which bought both laughter and tears of joy to the faces of several members of the audience. Others, completely engulfed in the tension and beauty of the speech, found that their bodies were unable to cope with the emotional demands being put upon them, and they promptly fell asleep, apparently in some sort of a state of shock. David has not yet had the pleasure of receiving the results of the Speaker Assessment Forms, but is hoping that they do arrive before Christmas. If you think that you can handle it, the presentation, snappily entitled "Generating smarter Java Proxies with a Gen and Java framework" can be viewed here

 
07-10-2003: Companion to present at Edge conference in Barcelona

David Silsbury will be presenting a paper entitled "Generating smarter Java Proxies with a Gen and Java Framework" at this years Edge conference in Barcelona (session 12B). Please come along and support your local Companion Director, anyone asking questions which make David look intelligent will be rewarded with a complimentary beverage of their choice in the conference lobby. For more details see this.

 
01-10-2003: Companion sponsor Model Management SIG

One of the few remaining Special Interest Groups worldwide, the Dutch Model Management SIG continues to flourish, or at least survive. The enthusiastic members will be meeting this year as guests of Companion IT Service, at the Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam on October 9th. The Olympic Stadium is best known internationally for it's hosting of the Olympics in 1928. It is locally also fondly remembered as the venue where the Dutch national football team, and the local club Ajax, played some spectacular games throughout the years. Let's hope that some of these Olympian thoughts rub off on the SSIG members!

 
22-08-2003: Companion summer get together, Den Haag

In the middle of one of the best summer's in living memory, Companion held their annual summer get together on a boat again, this time with a trip around the lesser known canals of Den Haag. They are a well kept secret, and are much less visited than the canals of Amsterdam or Utrecht. Having drifted our way around the unseen part of the capital, we closed off a very enjoyable evening at a gem of a restaurant.

 
23-06-2003: Code generators in the news

An article appears this week in Computable, the Dutch IT magazine, discussing the pros and cons of code generators. No mention of Advantage Gen explicitly, but interesting nonetheless. It has not yet been included in the online version of the magazine, but will do doubt appear soon, read here

 
12-05-2003: EDGE conference in Barcelona, November 2003

The Advantage Gen user community can once again look forward to a glamorous autumn bash with the announcement that this year's Edge conference is to be held in Barcelona in November. Companion will once again be represented in force. More details can be found here.

 
18-03-2003: Companion winners of top literary prize for 2002

At last the creative talents of the Companion IT personnel has been formally recognised by an independant jury. Those of us who plodded for 3 hours around Utrecht last August, nourished by nothing more than the misplaced hope that something exciting was bound to happen sometime, can proudly declare ourselves the 2002 "Hannes de Knipper" champion story tellers. Companion IT Services were chosen from the thousands of entrants as "most warped imaginations whilst under the influence of Jenever", and have won the top prize, a jeneverproeverij. If you want to see the StadsAvonturen Jury comments and the winning story, go to www.stadsavonturen.nl, click on "Arrangementen" (only in the Dutch side I'm afraid), then "Hannes de Knipper", scroll to the bottom of the page and wiggle the mouse violently around until you find the hidden link to the Jury prizes. You will see that we beat the (once) mighty KPN into third place. Cool.

 
20-02-2003: Advantge Gen in the news

Advantage Gen has been in the news recently, focusing on the J2EE capabilities of Advantage Gen 6.5. Read here and here.

 
20-12-2002: Companion Xmas Party

The 2002 Xmas party was a big hit. Held on the boat Prins van Oranje , the highlights included a desert bar which rose magically out of the floor, dancing cabaret waitresses and the look on Reinhard's face when he turned up in a t-shirt and saw everyone dressed up! The trip to the bridge to meet Captain Kirk also went down well, especially seeing all his machines which go "ping" and his large mug of coco. Highly recommended.

 
11-12-2002: CCCCC Christmas drink at De Zotte

Not much to report here, except that there were mostly contractors from ABN Amro. We enjoyed ourselves, and the CCCCC Chariman Reinhard Reading was there to cast an official eye over proceedings, which is quite apt since De Zotte is a Belgian pub.

 
19-11-2002: EDGE conference in London

The annual EDGE European conference for Advantage Gen users was held in London. Although only two days in length, there were several very useful presentations which can be downloaded here.

 
21-10-2002: Advantage Gen 6.5 General Availability announced

Computer Associates today announced general availability of Advantage Gen for Enterprise Servers version 6.5. This release is focused on the web end of the market, including capabilities to generate Java on server platforms (EJBs), and communicate using XML with Java Proxies. This brings the much hyped Web Services possibilities a good deal closer. See the CA site for more specific details.


 
01-10-2002: Companion Win AGAIN!

Those suckers for punishment on the ING SharING project badly wanted revenge in a 5-a-side match between Companion and SharING. Having been soundly hammered in the summer (see story from 13-06-2002 below) the ING team spent months doing intensive high-altitude training in Den Haag, and were confident of getting something from the game this time. Oh dear, oh dear, how wrong they were. The same solid gang of 5 lined up for Companion (Silsbury, den Heijer, Shamsi, Matthysens, Payne) even though Tom had a nasty cold and Dave was feeling under the weather with a sweaty top lip. Kit Lam was the Companion manager, providing excellent vocal support and encouragement, as well as some incisive tactical tips. The opposition included a couple of surprise starters, both female, one of whom turned out to be the SharING team's star performer, and she refused to be intimidated by a very physical Bob.
The game started at a frenetic pace, with both sides having early chances to break the deadlock. The decisive breakthrough though came for the Companion team as Bob popped up at the far post to put CIS 1-0 up. The Companion companions gradually began to dominate the midfield, and after half an hour the game was effectively wrapped up with the Companion team at least 6 goals to the good. The last half hour was played out to shouts of Olé from the watching crowds as the Companion team toyed with their opposition. I lost count of the goals when we reached double figures, suffice to say that it's now Companion 2 - SahrING 0. Come on SharING, give us a game!


 
23-08-2002: Summer BBQ in Utrecht

It wasn't actually a BBQ at all this year, but an evening stroll and Jenever tasting in Utrecht, trying to unravel the murder mystery of Hannes de Knipper. Both teams gave up on trying to answer anything sensible (although we did come up with this) and concentrated on trying to make it to the restaurant on time. An enjoyable late summer BBQ, without the BBQ bit.


 
02-07-2002: Kit Lam is the King of Predictions

Compared with the relatively dull World Cup in Japan, the Companion World Cup Poule in Amsterdam was a rip-roaring epic, with fortunes fluctuating as often as the weather and almost everybody leading the competition at one point of another. However, once Kit Lam got into his stride his rise to the zenith of the table could not be halted, even by a rampant Peter Bojoh who just timed his run too late. The exciting events unfolded courtesy of a snazzy Excel graph which, for those with plenty of time on their hands, can be viewed here. Just don't look too hard at who came last!


 
13-06-2002: Companion WIN!

In the end it was all a little too easy, even given the numerical disadvantage (gen). 5 Companion stalwarts took on 8 Sharing diehards, and the Companion boys came out on top 8-5, or something like that. In goal was Anwer "The Cat" Shamsi, at the back was Erik "The Wall" den Heijer, the midfield was chaperoned by Dave "Square Ball" Silsbury and up front were the dual spearheads of Bob "Rapier" Matthysens and Tom "Battering Ram" Payne. A job well done lads!


 
06-06-2002: Companion take on ING SharING All Stars at 5-a-side

On Thursday 13th of June the Companion IT Globetrotters will entertain an all-star team of ING SharING project members in a 5-a-side football "friendly" in Hoofdorp. Not for the faint-hearted, this fixture promises to be a blood and thunder clash, with much pride at stake. Long gone are the days when businessmen would casually invite their clients out for a round of golf, these days it all sliding tackles and diving headers. Watch this space for graphic photos!

 
16-04-2002: Rates continue to suffer, EDGE conference in London announced

We have to concede that the optimism we had for the Advantage Gen market at the beginning of this year (see News item below) was perhaps misplaced. Apart from the three sites we mentioned (ABN Amro, ING and the Belastingdiest) there is very little activity in the Dutch Advantage Gen market. And the little activity that there is is almost exclusively concentrated at the developer/senior developer level - more senior roles such as team leader, project leader, architect or consultant are almost impossible to find. Also, following on from the decisions by large consultancies such as CAP Gemini Ernst & Young, CMG and ATOS Origin, to cut their overall rates by up to 20%, rates for freelancers have been hit hard. These are unfortunate effects of the general malaise in the IT sector, coupled with the fact that there has been no new Advantage Gen sites announced in Holland since the late 1990s. This is not entirely surprising since the product has changed hands so often and it is a very difficult product to sell. The sales lead times are very long, and Advantage Gen is not a "boxed" product which can be sold on the back of other sales - the size of the investment required ensures that decisions must be made at board level. In the mid 1990s Texas Instruments in Holland certainly seemed to have a successful idea by selling solutions, in the form of fixed priced project using Advantage Gen, rather than the product itself. It is perhaps unfair to compare the mid 1990s with 2002, given the incredibly different market conditions. Let's just hope that by the autumn we begin to see an upturn.

On a brighter note, EDGE have announced the 2002 European conference will be in London between the 17th and 19th of November. Full details have yet to be announced but check out what is already on offer at the EDGE website.

 
04-02-2002: Market improves as we wave goodbye to COOL:Gen

Another year, another brand. Goodbye COOL:Gen, Hello Advantage Gen (punctuation to be decided). Computer Associates have gradually phased out the COOL:Gen brand, and ushered in the Advantage suite, of which our beloved tool is Advantage Gen. As far as we here at Companion HQ can determine there is no punctuation necessary, no Advantage:Gen for example. The romantics amongst you may dream about IEF, Composer or even Composer by IEF. But forget the past, Advantage Gen is here! As you may have noticed, we have refrained from changing our website to reflect this change since we think that most of our customers are also not yet up-to-speed on the new name.

Probably unconnected to these events, the Dutch Advantage Gen market has picked up remarkably since the turn of the year. ABN Amro, ING and the Belstingdienst have all shown signs of renewed activity, and we hope there's more where that came from.

Lastly on this bulletin, some website news. The Address page has been update with an improved (hopefully) Map and Directions, making it even easier for the hordes of visitors and business clients to find out head office. Also, our mirror site www.companion-it.com is up and running and available for use.

 
08-01-2002: No Euro glitches at Companion HQ

We are pleased to say that the Euro conversion came and went at Companion IT Services without so much as a ripple being caused in the regular cups of tea being drunk by HQ staff. Well done to our Euro conversion team who have spent night and day for the past 6 months to ensure that on 01-01-2002 we could cheerily declare "business as usual".

 
14-12-2001: Companion Year End Party

This year it was a medieval Fort sort of thing, with a midnight stroll through the Fort grounds. The hosts tried to scare us as best they could, but the most scary thing about it was that there was no beer, and wine could only be drunk during the meal. Next time we will take our bonhomie and Christmas Crackers elsewhere. And to make matters worse, we forgot the camera!

 
02-12-2001: COOL:Gen renamed?

It's squeaky clean, it's fresh, it's a brand new start for the COOL suite. Or is it. Confusion reins in the world of product naming at Computer Associates. Having been told at the Geneva conference that during the month of November COOL:Gen would be rebranded as a part of a major reorganisation within CA, no-one seems to be quite sure what exactly that rebranding has achieved. A glance at the updated CA website shows that there are indeed some new brands, including an expansion of Advantage, which already existed as a grouping for it's modelling tools. Into Advantage (a nice name, we think) comes the existing COOL suite, conspicuously without COOL:Joe which seems to have been removed from the CA website altogether. So, no new name and a shuffle around of the pack, hardly something which can be described as a major rebranding and certainly not something which makes it clear what the new strategy is of CA. We wait patiently......

 
01-12-2001: Mug collection expands

Do you have any unwanted COOL-related mugs which we can place in our living museum of COOL-mugs (aka our office kitchen). We are looking for any of the following mugs: Texas Instruments, IEF, James Martin and Co, Composer by IEF, Sterling Software, Composer, COOL:Gen, Computer Associates, etc. etc. Our first donation was gratefully received from donator John Nagtzaam, many thanks to him for getting the bandwagon rolling. Anyone who donates a mug (or mugs) will be invited round to the Companion It headquarters to enjoy a good brew up using their very own mug, photos will be taken and posted on this site.

 
25-11-2001: Email problems at Companion HQ force .COM registration

Companion IT services has been hit by some severe Email server problems of late. The delivery of emails to all @companion-it.nl email addresses between the beginning of November and beginning of December, have been affected. The results are that some emails were not only not delivered, but also not returned to the sender. We have naturally taken this up with our ISP (that wonderful efficient organization UPC) and are currently voting with our feet and moving to a new ISP with a brand new URL, www.companion-it.com , check it out. You will see that nothing much has changed, but hopefully missing emails will be a thing of the past. If you have been surprised at the lack of reaction from us at a recent email, please assume that this is the cause and resend it, we normally reply to all emails with 24 hours.

 
12-11-2001: 30% ruling and COOL:Gen in the press

Last week there were two stories in the press of interest to us here at Companion HQ. The first was the welcome decision by the Dutch government to retain the tax benefits currently in place for non-Dutch employees. This benefit is in the form of a 30% tax discount which acts as an incentive to attract foreign experts to come to Holland for work, and was being considered for scrapping. This was reported in Het Financieele Dagblad on November 5th.

Additionally, an article in the latest edition of Computable, discusses, in Dutch, the "Wederopstanding van case" (The Revival of Case) by Rick van der Lans. The writer says that new tools such as jDeveloper, from Oracle, can generate Java code from UML specifications. He goes further to say that the next step is to provide generation for other languages and environments. Finally, Rick hits the nail on the head when he concedes that COOL:Gen has been offering this for years, albeit not from a UML standpoint. I wonder what plans CA have with UML in the scheme of COOL:Gen things?

 
02-11-2001: Companion web site updated

Finally we've had the time to update the web site. One of the actions is to archive some of the older and less flattering photos from the Photo Gallery. If anyone sorely misses these, and perhaps would like to purchase the reproduction rights, please email us, we still have them.

 
01-11-2001: Latest COOL:Gen developments and new releases

Sometime in the month of November Computer Associates are expected to release the long awaited re-branding of the COOL portfolio of Application Development products. The positioning of the CA tools is totally dependent on the new CA brand and logo, with the emphasis on e-Business. CA are now more aggressively marketing their products eTrust, Brightstore and Unicenter, and less aggressively marketing Jasmine ii. All will be revealed soon.... The next versions of COOL:Gen to hit the market will be 6.5 in the summer of 2002, and version 7 sometime after that. These versions are planned to include the following items:

• Enterprise Java Bean generation on the server, using JDBC for database access
• J2EE will be supported via the COOL:Joe interface used to deploy EJBs
• XML generation for COM and JAVA proxies
• better integration of the COOL:Gen web design possibilities with third party HTML editors

Version 6.5 will not require a meta-model change, but version 7 will.

 
31-10-2001: Edge conference in Geneva

The EDGE COOL:Gen user conference was this year in Geneva. Although, understandably in the circumstances, it was less well attended than last year, the interest levels were high and there was a real buzz that COOL:Gen was being used seriously for eBusiness applications. CA were there in force and showed their commitment to COOL:Gen by sending many high level personnel and even a special made-for-the-conference video by Sunjay Kumar (now available in your local branch of Blockbusters). It seems that CA are very committed to improving the product, and have now realised the potential of the product which they bought a year ago. For a copy of the presentation slides, have a look at the Edge web site. Generally the conference was extremely well organised and professionally done, but that didn't stop me leaving my conference folder in a taxi. Who knows, perhaps the next big COOL:Gen site will be the Geneva Taxi company!

 
26-10-2001: Dutch government cancel Rekening Rijden

The Dutch government has announced that it's ambitious Rekening Rijden plans have been cancelled. The plan was to change road tax to be based on the number of kilometers driven, rather than the size of the engine of each car. The underlying system was already being built in COOL:Gen by the Belastingsdienst in combination with ATOS Origin. Unfortunately this project was immediately stopped when the new tax was cancelled.

 
20-09-2001: Companions get certified (insane)!

A nervous group of 8 Companion consultants gathered at the EXIN offices in Utrecht to sit the COOL:Gen Foundation examination, the only COOL:Gen certification program in the world at this moment. But there was nothing to be nervous about for this cerebral group of Extreme Programmers, who all passed with flying colours and celebrated with a slap-up meal at a local celebration center (pub).

 
10-08-2001: Companion 3rd Annual Summer BBQ

The third Companion summer barbeque continued in the tradition of the previous two and took place on a boat, this time on the Loosdrechtse Plas. Skipper Leo Oor provided an excellent lazy summer meander through some of the more quaint aquatic backways, and to accompany the spectacular sunsets (see photos) he delighted with his mix of eclectic, esoteric and downright bad 40s and 50s soundtrack.

 
29-05-2001: No news is good news

2001 has been very hectic indeed here at Companion global headquarters. Due to the continued absence of a significant portion of the management team who are working on client site, helping to build a 100% COOL:Gen browser-based application for implementation in bank offices throughout Holland, resources have been stretched. This fact, coupled with brisk business is in the Dutch COOL:Gen recruitement marketplace, has resulted in fewer exciting news stories than normal. We will do our best to generate some more exciting news stories soon......

 
16-12-2000: Companion Xmas treasure hunt

The year 2000 Christmas party was a rip-roaring success by any standards. Despite torrential weather which can only be attributed to global warming on a massive scale, our brave-hearted die-hards set off on a treasure hunt through the teeming streets of the Jordaan, fuelled by regular pit stops at famous Jordaan watering holes. Afterwards, a Belgian pub/restaurant provided the ideal setting for the treasure hunt Awards ceremony, Xmas cracker pulling and, of course, the regulatory Xmas bingo. See our classy photo-montage, made up by none other than Barbara herself....

 
27-08-2000: Companion 2nd Annual Summer BBQ

This year's summer BBQ was held during the weekend of Sail 2000. This provided a stunning backdrop for the wonderfully prepared sausages and chicken drum-sticks. If you like boats, this was THE place to be in August. Sorry, there's no photos of the boats!

 
12-07-2000: Office move completed

Our office move has now been successfully completed. Although we still have details to iron out, such as office chairs, our phones, PCs and other essential services are all up and running. The new office is still in the centre of Amsterdam so please feel free to drop by whenever you are in the area. For a decent Routemap, click here and choose the Routeplanner option.

 
13-06-2000: ISSUG Conference 2000 in Paris

Been there, done that. The first (and last) ISSUG conference of the new millenium was held in Paris in June. Companion IT turned out in force at Paris, our consultants mixing and mingling through the assembled COOL:Gen community. With our professional, dapper and enthusiastic appearance, Companion IT consultants could be easily picked out from the hundreds of delegates. The general consensus from this year's conference was that Computer Associates plans for COOL:Gen are as encouraging as we could have hoped for, but there was a feeling that the number of active COOL:Gen users at the conference, at least from Holland, was down on previous years. Socially, the conference was a major success. Throughout the city, at the cream of Paris night-spots, Companion consultants could be seen dancing the night away into the early hours, rubbing shoulders with the upper echelons of the Paris gliteratzi. It will be many years before Parisians forget that unique experience, the "Companion IT experience". Photos courtesy of Job de Bruyne.

 
01-05-2000: New worldwide COOL Usergroup

The two existing COOL products user groups, the ISSUG based in Europe and Connect based in USA, have combined forces and become Edge, aiming to create a consolidated worldwide COOL user group. They already have a web site, which can be viewed here.

 
08-04-2000: Companion sponsor Squash City tournament

Companion took it's first tentative steps into the glamorous world of sports sponsorship recently with a major investment in Amsterdam's Squash City Club Championship. The prize donated was a closely guarded secret, but unofficial sources have leaked that it involved several lessons in advanced subsetting techniques and cooperative packaging. Rumours that the next sponsorship deal is for a Formula 1 racing car are unfounded.

 
14-02-2000: Computer Associates take over Sterling Software

Sterling Software has been taken over by Computer Associates for $4 billion (approximately). There is plenty of good information, including product roadmaps for all COOL products at the Computer Associates web site.

 
22-12-1999: CCCCC Amsterdam branch Xmas conference

The CCCCC Christmas Celebration occured as usual at O'Reillys in Amsterdam. Respresentatives from ASZ, PGGM, Mitsubishi, Nationale Nederlanden and Bloemenveiling all discussed subsetting strategies long into the night.

 
17-12-1999: Companion Xmas Knees Up

The 1999 Christmas Party was held at Boom Chicago comedy club in Amsterdam. Although Glenn and Linda unfortunately couldn't make it because of a solid dose of flu, the rest of us had a fun time. The jokes were surprisingly good, particularly those from our table. The improv was very impressive, but the volume on the sound system did it's best to stop all conversation.

 
26-11-1999: Benelux User Group, Efteling

The Benelux COOL:Gen User group met recently in Efteling in South Holland. Interesting eh? (Sorry, link has disappeared long ago).

 
05-08-1999: Companion First Annual Summer BBQ

We celebrated the first ever Annual Companion Mid Summer Barbeque in traditional Dutch style - we hired a boat and cruised around the canals. In attendance at the glittering social event of the year were a host of Companion's consultants and partners/friends.