Scala to Deliver Customisable Web Functionality

Scala Business Solutions is an early adopter of Microsofts Visual Studio for Applications (PRWEB) March 26, 2001

London, 22nd March 2001, Scala plans to implement customisable web-based product functionality for its back office software and award-wining e-business product lines through the early adoption and incorporation of Microsoft® Visual Studio® for Applications (VSA) technology.

Licensing Visual Studio for Applications for the iScala product line is an important step in executing Scalas long term strategy of offering Micosoft.NET as the industry standard development environment for delivering fully-customisable web applications.

VSA delivers customised, feature-rich applications that are unique to each individual customer," says Sergey Shvedov, Scalas Senior Vice President of Research & Development. Many of our customers are already familiar with the powerful VBA development platform and the capability it gives them to tailor Scala applications to meet very specific business needs. VSA will now allow them to harness the unparalleled power of Microsoft VisualBasic.NET in the iScala product line to seamlessly integrate advanced and complex web functionality into their distributed applications."

Scala is keen to offer customisation possibilities through its core products, available in more than 30 languages, to meet individual client-specific and market-specific needs. VBA integration was the first step for Scala in the direction of enabling Scala customers to introduce behaviour changes in their standard Scala software. VBA developed projects for Scala applications are stored in E-repository, a Web-based library, developed by Scala that enables easy, controlled deployment of VBA customisations. Beyond the client specific modifications the VBA integration also helped Scala to develop specialised packages like Scala 5.1L for clients operating in Latin America. The unique separation of runtime and developer environments in Scalas VBA solution is now part of the VSA technology as a core concept. As Scalas customers more and more often request distributed, web-based functionality and enhancements to Scala solutions, VSA enables them to be developed and delivered in the shortest possible time and allow the extension of standard business logic for these web-based applications to be tailored to fit their individual needs.

"We are very excited to be working with Scala as an early adopter of Visual Studio for Applications," said Enrico Bonatti, Director of Partner Group EMEA, Microsoft. "We believe that companies using iScala applications will benefit greatly from the customisation made possible with Visual Studio for Applications."

According to Shvedov, global businesses today need to make the most of innovative technology to create valuable business benefits. Scala works together with Summit Software, Microsofts global agent for the Visual Studio Integration Program (VSIP). Our relationship with Summit Software plays a critical, on-going role in helping us take best advantage of innovative technology to deliver extensible software that can be easily customised to meet any special client requirements." he said. He added that Scala delivers the right mix of products and services to meet its clients changing needs in a rapidly-changing business world, whether those clients operate globally or locally. Our products are cost effective and can be deployed globally to give our clients the standardisation they need for making global business simple."

Microsoft still firmly believes in VBA and considers it the best tool available for deploying rich client customisation technology for COM-based applications. Microsoft is committed to assisting Scala as they begin to enable programmability in their .NET solutions", said Robert Green, Lead Product Manager at Microsoft. "VBA fulfils rich-client customisation in Scalas desktop environment and VSA enables powerful customisation of Scalas middle-tier business logic with the same ease and utilising the same familiar language; Visual Basic."
More information on Microsoft Visual Studio for Applications is available at the following address: <http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/vsip/vsa/>
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Notes to Editors

About Scala Business Solutions
Scala Business Solutions is a global software provider serving multinational companies. Scala makes global business simple with its world-class software for managing an e-business, combining traditional back office business management systems with software for doing business over the Internet. Scala provides a complete solution for its customers, and also works in combination with other providers to extend the scope its customers may need.
From offices in Europe, North America and the Far East, Scala delivers software that is available in more than 30 languages. The company implements its software through a network of direct offices and partners that together cover more than 90 countries. Local markets are also addressed through a network of dealers.
Scala is listed on the Euronext Amsterdam Stock Exchange (symbol: SCA). 2000 revenue was USD 71.2 million.