State of Missouri Selects Sterling
Software's VISION:Webaccess
to Link School Districts
525 School Districts, Including Schools in St. Louis and Kansas
City, Will Share Mission-Critical Data Via Internet Using PC-based
VISION:Webaccess
DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 19, 1999-- Sterling Software Inc.'s
(NYSE:SSW - news) Information Management Division Monday announced that
the State of Missouri has selected VISION:Webaccess(TM) to link its 525 school
districts to mission-critical data.
The announcement was made at Enterprise Strategies '99, the Sterling Software
Worldwide Customer Conference, being held April 18-21 at the Adam's Mark
Hotel in Dallas, where attendees will see demonstrations of VISION:Webaccess, a
Java-based thin-client computing solution for total enterprise data access and
analysis over the Internet.
''VISION:Webaccess is really easy from the user standpoint,'' said Dr. Marilou
Joyner, Assistant Commissioner, School Services, Department of Elementary and
Secondary Education, State of Missouri. ''The wizards are easy to walk through.
The users understand how to use it very quickly. It was easier to use than any
other tool we evaluated, and it had all the features we needed.''
The school system needed a tool that would help local district administrators
obtain data on everything from comparisons of school bus contracts to five-year
academic records for school performance reviews. Most of this information is
available on the Internet, but it is not always in a format that can be easily used
for the reports they need to prepare, which often need to include charts and
graphs.
Using wizard technology, VISION:Webaccess allows users to point-and-click their
way through queries, view and refresh previously created reports and charts, and
create ad hoc reports and charts for quick analysis.
''School officials throughout Missouri need to quickly and easily access
information via the Internet,'' said Carole Morton, president of Sterling Software's
Information Management Group. ''We are pleased that VISION:Webaccess is
helping make it possible for educators to find and format the information they
need to best serve the children, parents and taxpayers in the state.''
VISION:Webaccess Meets School Districts' Needs
Much of the information the local school district administrators need is currently
stored in a legacy VSE system at the state departmental offices. The Information
Services department is in the process of converting to an Oracle 7 database on an
IBM RS 6000 running AIX. VISION:Webaccess is being used to provide the
Internet link from the state department to the school district offices.
''We went through an evaluation period, looked at several different tools and
involved our department staff and school district representatives in the evaluation
process,'' explained Betty Rottmann, chief information officer for the Department
of Elementary and Secondary Education, State of Missouri.
''Based on that,'' she said, ''we've started a pilot program, and we're using
VISION:Webaccess as our facility for the school districts to get at the data and
produce whatever reports they need. These reports include charts and graphs and
can be used in presentations to school officials, teachers, parents or the general
public.''
''As the pilot project has progressed, we have been impressed with
VISION:Webaccess,'' stated Lainie Smith, webmaster, Department of Elementary
and Secondary Education, and Diana James, consultant working with the
Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, State of Missouri. |
