Volcanology: the study of volcanoes and volcanic activity. In Roman mythology, Vulcan is the god of fire and metalworking, and represents the creative force. But what do volcanoes and Vulcan have to do with BASIS?

BASIS has taken up volcanology to forge some valuable new tools that you will soon be using to hammer out new applications. As you'll read in this issue, Volcano is the code name for the new BASIS technology strategy. Over the coming months, you'll be reading more in these pages about products with code names like Kilauea, Cabezon, and Pinatubo.

Along with this new product strategy, there have been many changes at BASIS. All of them put customer needs first. Enhancement requests from support calls, e-mail, and sales visits are funneled to the marketing department to become the nucleus of new product development. The new quality assurance team concentrates on improving software quality through better testing. BASIS Sales now has new staff to concentrate on technical consulting. Product teams involve marketing, technical support, engineering, and other groups in a structured development process that provides evaluation and feedback long before programmers write a line of code for a new release.

The first product to erupt from Volcano technology, Kilauea, is the focus of this issue. DDBuilder™ - New GUI Data Dictionary Editor introduces a graphical data dictionary utility for Windows that gives you an easier way to create and extend BASIS data dictionaries, with support for SQL Views.

SQL Views are a key component in ODBC Liberates Non-Normalized Data, which shows how you can use release 1.1 of the BASIS ODBC Driver™ to generate some very complex reports in Windows.

Another new Kilauea utility is the Program Wizard. The Kilauea Erupts With Magic article describes how the Wizard uses just a few steps to create reports and file maintenance programs.

Dan Rask, BASIS product manager for new product development, provides an overview of the Volcano technology strategy in an interview with the Advantage staff.

Volcanoes build slowly under the surface, unseen, then erupt in an amazing display of energy. Get ready - it's coming!