Strategic Question 4:
What Do Experts Who "Get It" Say about AngelBase?
13 Expert Endorsements
Experts are listed below in alphabetical order, with their statements endorsing AngelBase and their credentials.
These experts have signed nondisclosure agreements and cannot respond to your technical inquiries about AngelBase. Furthermore, they have not consented to spending their time responding to your inquiries. If you wish to communicate with them, you will need to make independent arrangements with them.
Prof. Frederic Andres
Dr. Didier H. Besset
Prof. Lubomir Bic
Prof. Wesley W. Chu
Mr. Donald M. Erway
Mr. Dean Guida
Mr. Bret Huggins
Dr. Adrian Juncosa
Prof. Anthony S. Karrer
Prof. Dennis Mcleod
Prof. Eitan Sadeh
Dr. James Wray
Mr. Cyril Charles Young
Prof. Frederic Andres
"AngelBase sits at a technological crossroads, providing a new vision of information systems scalability. AngelBase is a database platform, but it is designed to be integrated with operating systems as well, incorporating multi-agent technology. This new wave of integrated technology will significantly surpass existing commercial database engines in terms of performance, customizability and the ability to manage complexity."
Dr. Andres holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of PARIS VI with a specialization in Advanced Parallel Databases (extended relational, object oriented and multimedia). He is currently Associate Professor of Computer Science, Distributed Processing Research, Software Research Division at the National Institute of Informatics (NII), Tokyo, Japan. Frederic is an expert in most areas of database technology, holds several software patents, and is the creator and lead implementor of PHASME, an application-oriented database platform which is the core technology for several projects.
Dr. Didier H. Besset
"The AngelBase metaphor provides a unified, powerful and coherent means for users to access and conceptualize data within a new information model. Several concepts in the AngelBase model are identical to ideas that I have discovered myself and used in my own work with databases. Much of AngelBase is quite unique and intriguing--a real paradigm shift in computing. AngelBase gives problem solving specialists the possibility to implement their ideas directly into a computer. This opens new perspectives for the use of computers. I am hopeful that I will be able to directly participate in the implementation effort from my distant location."
Dr. Besset holds a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Geneva. He has developed a general purpose database application generator with special facilities for handling optical memory cards, and is currently consulting with several companies in connection with his system, including Nippon Conlux Corp., Japan; Kawatetsu Steel Corp., Japan; and British Telecom, U.K.. Didier has extensive expertise and experience both in physics and computer science.
Prof. Lubomir Bic
"Expert critics who fail to grasp the significance of AngelBase don't recognize that its greatest power is that it is holistic. Doctors who reject non-allopathic medicine suffer from a similar misunderstanding. To create genuine health, one must recognize that all the elements of the body are holistically integrated. AngelBase is designed to holistically integrate all the elements of a computer system, and that has never been done before."
And in another statement:
"I believe the model you have implicitly addresses a very important problem, namely the input/output bottleneck. ... For a number of years I have been looking into this problem and we have worked on alternative models that could overcome the barriers. ... AngelBase is a much more sophisticated model and I think it could solve the performance problem by directly overcoming the input/output bottleneck."
Dr. Bic holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California at Irvine, where he is presently Professor of Information and Computer Science. His research interests include parallel and distributed computing, biomedical simulations, semantic and object-oriented systems, and he has an extensive background with database theory. Professor Bic is a past editor of IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering.
Prof. Wesley W. Chu
"One of the innovative features of AngelBase is its information structure, which allows both user-data and meta-data (which describe the structure and knowledge of the data) to be input to the system. Such an information structure can provide semantic clues for query optimization, orderly data schema extension, and reduction of costs in application software maintenance."
Dr. Chu holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford and is currently Professor of Computer Science at UCLA. He is a past Chairman of the department. Professor Chu is the Principal Investigator of a three million dollar DARPA contract for researching scalable and extensible information systems. He is currently Associate Editor for the Journal of Data and Knowledge Engineering, and a member of the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Very Large Data Bases and other publications.
Mr. Donald M. Erway
"What spreadsheets did for tabular, financial calculations, AngelBase promises to do for all business applications. Namely, to empower the users to define what they see on the screen, and how they interact with the system to get their jobs done. AngelBase makes this power accessible, by presenting the user with a simple graphical way to examine and manipulate the meta-data which dynamically define their application. AngelBase makes this power safe, by ensuring that the higher levels of data integrity, (global/corporate/group), are always enforced. AngelBase appears to have the components required to make that breakthrough of bringing the power of 'programming' to the average user."
Mr. Erway holds a B.S. in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from MIT, and he completed the course work for a Masters in Computer Science at MIT. He is currently a consulting software engineer at at N.D.C. Systems, Irwindale, California, and he recently began working part time on AngelBase.
Mr. Dean Guida
"AngelBase holds the potential to revolutionize the computer industry through a massive paradigm shift which fundamentally changes the manner in which computer systems are programmed and used. The paradigm shift is from a process-driven, static system to a data-driven, dynamic system. It took me several hours to understand this paradigm shift, but once I saw it, it became crystal clear. The new methods introduced by Mr. Emerson are extremely powerful, and hold the potential to drastically reduce software development time and costs, dramatically empower computer users and increase computer performance. The AngelBase metaphor will enable both technical experts and ordinary computer users to better understand important information science issues. To my knowledge nothing like AngelBase exists even on the drawing boards of any company. If successfully implemented and marketed, AngelBase could become the industry standard, gradually replacing existing database platforms, and [Mr. Emerson's organization] could emerge as the computer industry leader."
Mr. Guida holds a BA Degree in Business and BS in Systems Analysis from the University of Miami and is presently CEO of Infragistics Corporation in East Windsor, New Jersey. Infragistics (Infragistics.com) is a leader in providing a broad infrastructure of reusable presentation layer components essential for the creation of next generation web-based applications and XML Web services utilizing .NET, COM, and Java.
Mr. Bret Huggins
"It seems to me that the AngelBase architecture is itself the key to breaking the barrier to truly general purpose parallel computing. This is because each transaction can potentially spawn a large number of angels, and each angel instance is a small, independent process that can be quickly assigned to its own separate processor . Your design for the AngelMachine hardware effectively supports the complex problems of shared, distributed resources, data access, inter processor communication and scalability. I am impressed with the design, and I believe it can reasonably be expected to achieve the long sought goal of massive parallelism."
And in another statement:
"AngelBase is more than a database: it is an information synthesis system. AngelBase integrates global information access, complex data structuring and computation into a concise, yet practical entity. This expanded capability is not achieved by narrowing the user community to trained specialists; indeed, just as it expands the technical horizon, AngelBase also expands user accessibility."
Mr. Huggins studied Physics and Chemistry at Berkeley, but shortly before completing his degree was offered (and accepted) a position in the Berkeley Electrical Engineering Department in an ARPA sponsored software research position. He is currently developing test procedures for network switches and routers for Alcatel Corporation, Calabasas, California. He previously developed advanced analytic features and graphical capabilities for the Light Tools optical CAD system at Optical Research Associates, Pasadena, California. Bret has over thirty years experience in software development in CAD/CAM, CASE, user interfaces, high performance 3D graphics, cartography, language processors, operating systems and utilities.
Dr. Adrian Juncosa
"The biggest obstacle to realizing the full potential benefit of computer technology is the difficulty in directing applications to do what the user wants. With each new round of updates, we are constrained to function ever more narrowly through pathways determined by designers who are inexperienced with the diversity of end uses. A change in the foundation of the edifice, the database system, is needed and inevitable. AngelBase promises to bring to the user the transparency and background accessibility that is needed, and clearly incorporates technical principles that will make this possible. My lifelong acquaintance with Mark has consistently shown that he realizes goals once set, and I have no doubt he and his team will do so with AngelBase."
Dr. Juncosa plays a complementary role on the Technical Advisory Board, as an expert user who is not a computer scientist. He holds a Ph.D. in Botany from Duke University, and a B.A. in biology from Harvard. He is an independent biological consultant in Truckee, California, and was formerly Supervising Scientist at Parsons Harland Bartholomew and Associates, Sacramento. Adrian has extensive experience using computer analysis and modeling tools in complex biological and environmental studies.
Prof. Anthony S. Karrer
"AngelBase brings a conceptual framework to a powerful modeling language. The key innovation is the expressiveness and rigor of the data model and the conceptual framework that supports this model. Other database products force the user to build hand-crafted pieces of code to describe rules directly expressible in the AngelBase model. The net result: not only is the model in AngelBase easier to understand, but it is much less likely to contain errors. AngelBase users will be able to visualize and understand data because of contextual information. Users can formulate questions interactively. Most data will be immediately available to the user. This creates the possibility of data interaction, where users view and manipulate data in order to understand it. AngelBase will improve performance both in the storage required and in the amount of data the must be transmitted across the network. The concept of catalogs in AngelBase is quite revolutionary. This concept allows the database to know what will eventually be viewed by the user. I am greatly excited about the possibilities that AngelBase has for achieving better quality, lower cost software systems."
Dr. Karrer holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from USC. He is currently CEO and CTO of TechEmpower, Inc, El Segundo, California. TechEmpower (TechEmpower.com) a successful IT consulting company which he founded and which currently has 35 employees. Dr. Karrer was previously Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, where specialized in the fields of software engineering, database management systems and multimedia software. He has fifteen years experience in software development. He has developed systems that range from radar software to data-mining solutions. He has been the chief technologist for three Web start-up companies. He has a wide-ranging technical background and is considered one of the top technologists in training and performance support development. His work has won awards and has led him into engagements at many Fortune 500 companies including Credit Suisse, Royal Bank of Canada, Citibank, Lexus, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, Fidelity Investments, Symbol Technologies and SHL Systemhouse.
Prof. Dennis Mcleod
"A key breakthrough in AngelBase is the information organization technique, which provides unified access to data and 'meta-data' (data describing the meaning and structure of information), and allows database manipulation to be 'meta-data driven'. Further, the AngelBase metaphor unifies and simplifies database management and its connection with information communication and sharing in an application system."
Dr. McLeod holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from MIT and is currently Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southern California. His specializations include databases, networking and knowledge management. Professor McLeod is currently Research Thrust Leader in distributed multimedia information management at the USC Integrated Media Systems Center. He is an editor of the Journal on Very Large Databases, IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, and other publications.
Prof. Eitan Sadeh
"AngelBase provides application development with powerful high level tools. It will make it possible for the first time for end users, who are the domain experts, to directly develop or extend applications to suit their needs. AngelBase allows dynamic changes by the user to the application's behavior at runtime, which opens new horizons in computing. Design through prototyping, ability to play "what-if" games to tune the application, and other techniques, which are currently very difficult to achieve, will become reality."
Dr. Sadeh holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Minnesota. He is currently both an independent software consultant as well as Adjunct Professor of Computer Science at California State University at Fullerton. Eitan has nearly 20 years of software engineering experience in areospace, including 15 years at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, working on a variety of ground-based and spacecraft-based information systems. He has also been Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California Santa Barbara, and a visiting professor at USC and UCLA.
Dr. James Wray
"AngelBase has the earmark of a real watershed in software understanding. By identifying subtleties of the software problem space, and providing a handle to explicitly deal with these subtleties, AngelBase removes, a priori, sources of error, confusion and ambiguity. The result is a robust and yet flexible framework fit to define and tackle the mega software problems of the future. I have been associated with AngelBase as an advisor almost since its inception and must say the evolution and maturity of the project, with its limited resources, has been extraordinary."
Dr. Wray holds a Ph.D. in Physics from Syracuse. He is currently a physicist at Optical Physics Company, Calabasas, California, where he works on algorithm design and software implementation of laser optics devices. He previously completed consulting assignments at Boeing, Long Beach, California and Wittaker Electronic Systems, Simi Valley, California, developing and testing flight support and electronic counter measure embedded software systems. Jim has twenty years experience in software development and management, and eight faculty years, up to Associate Professor of Physics, at several universities.
Mr. Cyril Charles Young
What appears immediately below (in purple) is an exerpt from Mr. Young's lengthy letter endorsing AngelBase. His entire letter appears after his bio.
"The result of AngelBase's dynamism will be unprecedented empowerment of all classes of users. From the top to the bottom of the corporate food chain, people will be thrilled to use not 'the system' but 'our system'....
"This may all seem too good to be true, but it probably isn't. The many innovations in the AngelBase Technical Treatise make it quite feasible...What's needed now is the financing and time to get it built. The result will be the most powerful, most efficient DBMS on the market.
"This is not just a revolution in information technology, but a revolution in the way business is done. The market potential for this software is staggering; it goes way beyond DBMS...The only limitation on the future of AngelBase will be the imaginations of its designers.
"At the moment, AngelBase is the product of one designer, and there doesn't seem to be much limit to his imagination. I've known Mark Emerson for 22 years. His scientific brilliance is aptly demonstrated in his technical treatise, his entrepreneurial acumen in his business plans. As these qualities stand on his work alone, I will attest here only to his boundless energy, impeccable ethics, warm heart and expansive mind. I consider AngelBase to be a towering work of the human spirit. It came from a towering spirit."
Mr. Young was a National Merit Scholar and a Physics major at Berkeley for two years. He is an expert in database theory and an independent database consultant working out of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He was formerly a Systems Analyst and Programmer at MiniMed Technologies, Sylmar, California, where he designed and maintained a database system to support the clinical research on an artificial pancreas product.
Mr. Young's Long Letter Endorsing AngelBase
We stand in the midst of the information age. Administrators, managers and executives at all levels of business find the substance of their careers to be the inputting, accessing and structuring of data. Yet, for all this, and despite the PC revolution, surprisingly little progress has been made in the field of database management systems (DBMS) in the last 25 years. Hardware has become orders of magnitude more powerful, to be sure, but the vast majority of businesses use relational databases (a technology older than the personal computer itself) or even more archaic hierarchical or network DBMS. The reality is that there has been little headway made in DBMS since the 1970's.
Ridiculous? Not at all. Consider the situation at corporations across America (and the world). We find (broadly speaking) three classes of users: call them inputters, accessors and organizers. While there is frequent overlap in individual users (especially in smaller businesses), this is a reasonable functional partitioning for the purposes of our discussion. Let us consider each in turn, and their relationship to the nefarious "system":
CATEGORY 1. INPUTTERS
We find these users mainly in production, quality, research, shipping and especially accounting. They are generally mid- to low-level employees primarily concerned with the actual physical output of product. As such, one of the chief indices of their efficiency is their ability to "cut through the red tape" or "get around the system." They have little to no insight into the DBMS structure, and correspondingly little appreciation of the contextual significance of their input. The opaque DBMS is a hindrance to their quest, which is simply to get stuff done. One example would be a production data entry clerk putting dummy values into a "vendor i.d." field because the i.d. has not been assigned by accounting. Or again, consider a research engineer dealing directly with production, vendors and outside contractors to meet a deadline on prototype development, letting the riders, invoices, etc. backlog until he has time to create and input them--if he ever gets the time.
CATEGORY 2. ACCESSORS
These are administrators, managers and executives throughout any corporation, especially in marketing/sales. They are the ones the system is meant to serve. Yet they spend most of their time managing information on their own desktop PCs. The tool of choice in this noble endeavor is the ubiquitous spreadsheet. Despite the fact that spreadsheets are loosely structured, highly corruptible and totally unsophisticated, accessors fall back on them time and again. They can't wait around for Computer Operations (a.k.a. MIS) to produce reports to their specifications. They can't tolerate the abysmal aesthetic quality of such reports in any case. Finally, they have neither the time, inclination nor (generally) the expertise to upgrade the system to meet their expanding information needs--until the situation reaches critical mass and they are forced to become organizers despite themselves (see below). Until this happens (if at all), it is not uncommon to see whole departments run on the basis of these parallel spreadsheet "databases". Think of all those marketing administrators tracking sales redundantly with the system in order to facility "easy reporting."
CATEGORY 3. ORGANIZERS
This user class is comprised of domain experts, upper management, analysts and programmers. These are the people in charge of the structure of the business model on the one hand, and the implementation of a corresponding information model on the other hand. Ideally, the information model precisely reflects the business model. Unfortunately, organizers find this impossible to achieve given their fiscal and temporal constraints. Older hierarchical and network DBMS too primitive to reflect the business model would cost too much to upgrade--that's why these systems are still in use. Newer relational and object DBMS would just require too much procedural code to keep them in strict adherence to reality. So the organizers leave sections of the business model out (keeping all those category 2 users busy compensating with their spreadsheets) or worse, alter the business model to comply with the limitations of their platform (alienating category 1 users who find the system inconsistent with the realities of their jobs). Generally, organizers focus the majority of their energies on the one dimension indispensable to all aspects of business--money. The inability of organizers to offer broader support to other users tends to foster a bunker-like mentality--especially in that subset known as "computer people" (the analysts and programmers). These folk become almost petulant at the general lack of appreciation of "their system".
So there it is. Everywhere we find an adversarial relationship between the system (and those who design and support it) and the rest of the company. We find incredible duplicity of effort and lost productivity. But worse than the redundancy is the absence of global, company-wide access to all that information. The left hand seldom has any idea what the right hand is doing.
Again and again these users, frustrated by the inadequacies of "the system," fall back on spreadsheets. Why? Because in a spreadsheet, data structure is readily apparent. Simple as they are, a given spreadsheet is easy to understand for this very reason: structure is not buried in programming code.
Which brings us to AngelBase.
In AngelBase, there is a strict, clean partition between data structure and data access. Data integrity is inherent in the system and entirely independent of the way in which data is input, edited or summarized. As a result, the information model is no longer process driven. In fact, in AngelBase, there is no procedural programming at all. The structure of the information model and all rules relating to that model are totally explicit. This is all achieved through an ingenious metaphor in which elements of data are "chunked" hierarchically according to their degree of commonality. For example, a top level metaphor structure might group all business entities as "parties", with lower structures further differentiating between "people", "organizations", "customers" "vendors", and so forth. This neat "leveling", combined with other innovations, means that any degree of logical complexity is supported. AngelBase will be the first DBMS to fully support all business models without a line of code.
Since data integrity is no longer tied to access, users will now be free to view and edit data according to their own local needs (subject to their authority). They will define their own ways in which to view data; the platform will ensure that each view is consistent with logical structure, and placed in the proper global context. All users will be able to summarize data at will--dynamically, on line. No more queries, no more batch jobs, no more system downtime. Further, authorized users can alter the very structure of the information on line. Application development will now consist of thoroughly understanding the business model, then simply implementing the change. The information model will thus stay in constant sync with changing business realities.
The result of AngelBase's dynamism will be unprecedented empowerment of all classes of users. From the top to the bottom of the corporate food chain, people will be thrilled to use not "they system" but "our system". Inputters will find their activities accurately modeled and actively supported. Accessors will be able to get the information they need any way they want. And organizers will be able to focus on evolving better ways of doing business, implementing those changes, and analyzing the same. The adversarial relationship between users and system will be no more. There will be an end to separate databases tracking information concurrently with or exclusive of the company's DBMS.
This may all seem too good to be true, but it probably isn't. The many innovations in the AngelBase Technical Treatise make it quite feasible. It will be challenging to create but eminently doable, thanks to a very workable project management plan. AngelBase will attract top quality people to its implementation team--as a programmer it's difficult to think of a more exciting venture. What's needed now is the financing and time to get it built. The result will be the most powerful, most efficient DBMS on the market.
This is not just a revolution in information technology, but a revolution in the way business is done. The market potential for this software is staggering; it goes way beyond DBMS. Good old spreadsheets form a trivial subset of possible AngelBase applications. Future revs should make it the best word processor on the market, with limitless cross-referencing, complete dictionaries, etc. AngelBase's attention to the importance of graphs brings CAD (Computer Aided Design) to mind. Music and video data types will eventually be supported. The only limitation on the future of AngelBase will be the imaginations of its designers.
At the moment, AngelBase is the product of one designer, and there doesn't seem to be much limit to his imagination. I've known Mark Emerson for 22 years. His scientific brilliance is aptly demonstrated in his technical treatise, his entrepreneurial acumen in his business plans. As these qualities stand on his work alone, I will attest here only to his boundless energy, impeccable ethics, warm heart and expansive mind. I consider AngelBase to be a towering work of the human spirit. It came from a towering spirit.
So let's build it already!
--Cyril Charles Young
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