Constructive Review

After introducing the concept, a constructive review is first asked to actors without any delay to make enumerate the positive and the negative points in comparison with their needs to build a part of their information system.

Positive Points

• Capacity of confidentiality.
  Up ! Application System allows creating profiles, to which sharp habilitation lists are joined, on objects, on modules, on treatments, etc.
  
• Capacity of flexibility / of modularity.
  The business components are organized in a hierarchy of extensible interfaces. The granularity of these interfaces is thin.
  
• Capacity of reactivity / of suppleness.
  No treatment and no business rule are encoded into the objects that are making real the business interfaces. The objects are integrated either automatically by Up ! Workbench or half automatically by Up ! Compiler.
  
• Capacity of interoperability.
  The functional description of these interfaces is independent of the technical set-up. For each technical axis - database, data exchange, service call, etc. -, the three main technologies are proposed with any suggestion to expose the objects.
  
• Interesting / attractive / genuine global concept.
  The concept is different from what it could be proposed today and meets a need of the market.
  
• Embedding the existing.
  The objects that are setting up the interfaces could come from either a bank sold by Up ! Virtual Business Machine or the embedding of the existing - by a half-automated integration.
  
• Business and technical virtual machine.
  Business virtual machine delivering economical services. Technical virtual machine allowing writing a program that is independent of the target platform.
  
• Incremental set-up.
  It is possible to begin with a small side project including few components and then to be more powered.
  
• Business model for sale.
  Invoicing according to the real usage, with a lower limit and an upper limit.
  
• Business model for the firm.
  Business model of the information system allowing logical planning.
  
• Pragmatism.
  Concept adapted to the real needs of a firm without any technical pitfalls.
  
• Similar to the Framework approach of IBM.
  IBM developed specific technical software for a large account based on Java technology.
  
• Standardization.
  Concept allowing making standard the applications, which ease the integration.
  
• Technology.
  Fifth Generation Language (5GL) and micro Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) allowing an easy assembly of the business components.

• Attractive global concept - 54%.
  Whatever the technical virtual machine, the business virtual machine, the Fifth Generation Language (5GL) or the micro Enterprise Application Integration (EAI), the global concept makes dream because it could allow avoiding numerous troubles in a large part - dependency from the suppliers, technical languages and integration difficulties.
  
• Modularity, suppleness and interoperability - 35%.
  The concept could allow the firms to be more reactive by starting small projects whose aims are to make evolve the information system through small spots, without jeopardizing the existing.
  
• Business modeling and standardization - 11%.
  The concept takes its place in the logical module planning since it integrates it.
  

Negative points

• Ambitious and a too early solution.
  The ampleness of the project is first surprising. The willingness to model the business of the firm around two corner stones built incrementally - the micro-business model and the micro-expert system of each business component - is out the thinking of most of the actors.
  
• Private architecture.
  Up ! Application System is supposed to embed the main today's technologies and vertical software. This new private system is becoming quickly mandatory, which is a risk of monopoly and a feeling of dependency even stronger.
  
• Complexity of the offer for small accounts.
  Up ! Application System should not meet the needs of small accounts - less than 500 employees.
  
• Hard to set up in the existing.
  The existing is complex enough not to be taken into account so easily as it is announced by the value proposition.
  
• Lack of capacity of the company.
  The company could not have the capacities needed to realize the announced ambitions, especially for the delivery of components, the international deployment, the forthcoming technologies and the supplying of services.
  
• Lack of realism about the business modeling.
  The willingness to model the business of the firm around two corner stones built incrementally - the micro-business model and the micro-expert system of each business component - should be impossible for some actors, judging their activities too specific.
  
• Lack of realism about the future of the open source.
  Some actors are waiting that vertical software easy to be integrated are let free to firms through Internet. And they should also be based on business components.
  
• Lack of realism about the integration of technologies.
  The willingness to realize an almost universal virtual technical machine should be a utopia.
  
• Bad technological choice.
  Designing a modern application using a programming language other than Java should be a big error.
  
• Business model too costly.
  The business model should not offer enough visibility to forecast the yearly IT budgets.
  
• Need of a political decision.
  As for the choice of a generic vertical software, the set-up of Up ! Application System would need a political decision taken by a top manager.
  
• No need.
  The information system is sufficient enough. No more development is necessary, except maintaining.
  
• Not for this business line.
  The concept of Up ! Application System could not take into account the cultural specificities of this business line.
  
• Everlastingness of the technology.
  The economic fragility of Up ! Company while starting would make doubtful the everlastingness of the technology of Up ! Application System, which is opposed to the promise of business modeling stability.
  
• Performance and stability of the technology.
  The technology of Up ! Application System would not be enough performing, stable or robust the first years, which is opposed to the value proposition.
  
• Positioning not well understood.
  Either the concept needs many further explanations in comparison to the standard argumentation or the positioning is so badly understood that some actors are mismatching it with a new Enterprise Resource Planer (ERP)!
  
• Automatic programming is unrealistic.
  The concept of automatically assembling business interfaces, to describe them into a natural and high-leveled language and to automatically write programs by a clever generation process should be unrealistic.

The second macro-criticism is the difficulty to communicate on the concept that is qualified as to be on an early stage - 21% -, which is damaging either for being differentiated from generic vertical software, today's technologies or for making emerge the need.

The third macro-criticism claimed by the actors who have understood at best the concept is a difficulty to introduce it in their global planning - 21% -, either for a political reason, for a lack of components, for a lack of service or for a reason related to budget.

While more than 50% of the actors are attracted by the concept, only 5% claim that they would foresee no use of it.