Family tree application MyBlood is built using REAL Studio, a cross-platform development tool; RAD set-up and cross-platform capabilities make REAL Studio development environment of choice for Vertical Horizon
ANTWERP, Belgium (April 27, 2010) — Vertical Horizon was started by seasoned and experienced IT professionals with a passion for genealogy. While writing the business plan for what would become the MyBlood application, they set a number of goals:
- Sharing genealogy data with other people should be easy, no matter which platform you're working on - whether it be any Windows flavor or Mac OS
- Rapid development cycles, allowing quick responsiveness to customers
- Native applications with a media rich user interface
- No need for runtime software for the clients
From a functional point of view this resulted in MyBlood embracing the GEDCOM standard for easily sharing and exchanging family tree data, but also exchanging databases without conversions. From a technical point of view Vertical Horizon wanted a cross-platform development environment to compile fast, native applications. A low learning curve and high productivity were also important factors, because Vertical Horizon touches a wide range of technologies.
Geert Jadoul, head of Product Development Management at Vertical Horizon comments: "When we first heard about REAL Studio, we almost thought: ‘this sounds too good to be true', but after an in-depth evaluation we were convinced that this might be the development tool for us, which it turned out to be! REAL Studio has a really low learning curve and it excels as a development environment with regards to database integration and graphical layout sophistication, making sure we get the most out of our development resources."
Jadoul continues: "Looking at the MyBlood code base it is fair to say that less than 1% of the code needs changes to allow the application to run flawlessly on the different platforms and this without jeopardizing platform specific items. From a technical point of view you don't get the smallest common denominator like you see all the time with other cross platform tools, but you get the best and strongest from both worlds. With the Rapid Application Development (RAD) of REAL Studio, we have very short development cycles and can add extra functionality with every minor release. Needless to say that a single integrated environment for different platforms boosts development productivity in an unprecedented way", Jadoul concludes.
REAL Software's Founder and CEO Geoff Perlman says: "It's great to see young and innovative software companies like Vertical Horizon excited about REAL Studio. We are pleased to offer a development tool that not only saves developers time, but also delivers true native cross-platform applications."
"By using REAL Studio, Vertical Horizon was not only able to save development time and costs, but they were also able to expand their market by taking advantage of REAL Studio's cross-platform abilities," Perlman adds.
MyBlood 1.2 runs on Windows (XP, Vista and Windows 7) and on Mac OS X (Intel and PowerPC). It is sold on the MyBlood site: www.myblood-line.com. A full functional trial version is available for evaluation purposes.
REAL Studio 2010 Release 1 is available at www.realsoftware.com and runs on Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. REAL Software offers a free 30-day trial edition of REAL Studio and a 90-day money back guarantee on all new license purchases.
About MyBlood
MyBlood is a genealogy application that targets every level of genealogists. It delivers simple views but deep insights on complex genealogy data, by combining relational database technology under the hoot with superior visualization on the outside.
MyBlood supports multiple languages and comes with a free separate program to easily add your own translations and languages if required. MyBlood runs in the exact same way on the PC* as it does on a Mac. With full support for the international GEDCOM format, it produces highly portable data sets avoiding any vendor lock. With out of the box integration with Google Maps for "places" and "locations" it allows to visualize moves, travels, emigrations or any other kind of movements in your family history in an unprecedented way.
MyBlood will also bring a more natural way of working with any kind of media files like tagging people on pictures like many social network sites tend to do nowadays.
About Vertical Horizon
Vertical Horizon is an independent, Belgium based, start-up company that brings together the power of personal computing with in depth knowledge of genealogy. This resulted in the development of MyBlood, a state of the art genealogy application.
Vertical Horizon was started by seasoned and experienced IT professionals with a passion for genealogy. The Antwerp based company is owned and financed by its management team.
About REAL Studio
REAL Studio, formerly REALbasic, is a full-featured cross-platform software development tool suited to creating a wide range of applications, from utilities to enterprise-class applications. REAL Studio Personal Edition for Windows, Linux or Mac is priced at $99 and is geared for hobbyists and students. REAL Studio Professional Edition, required for cross-platform compilation, is $299. REAL Studio Enterprise Edition, made for full-time developers, is priced at $995. All editions of REAL Studio are now available and can be downloaded directly from REAL Software at http://www.realsoftware.com/download.
About REAL Software
REAL Software provides REAL Studio, an object-oriented cross-platform software development tool, and REAL Server, a cross-platform database server, for developers who want to create and deliver software for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. REAL Software was founded in 1996 and is based in Austin, Texas. For more information visit www.realsoftware.com.