Computer-Aided Engineering Unveiled : IBM Seeks to Automate Software Design

International Business Machines Corp. today announced a system for writing computer programs with the help of computer programs.

The world’s biggest computer company held a news conference to announce its commitment to “computer-aided software engineering,” which is intended to make software more reliable and faster to develop.

More than 30 companies expressed support for IBM’s blueprint, demonstrating IBM’s influence in the computer business.

Disorganized writing of software has led to sprawling, patched-together, unmanageable programs that take up valuable programmers’ time and stall innovation. The problem has become so acute that corporate chief executives are pressing their computer chiefs for a solution.

“The real driving force behind our industry is that we have got to figure out how to build better software, faster,” Kim Addington, vice president for marketing at KnowledgeWare Inc. in Atlanta, said.

Sales of tools for computer-aided software engineering already total about $300 million a year, even though fewer than 10% of customers are even dabbling in it, according to CASE Research Corp. of Bellevue, Wash.

CASE Research expects sales to start jumping about a year from now when software toolmakers have brought their products into line with IBM’s de facto industry standard.

At least five years will be required to achieve largely automatic programming, but IBM’s commitment at least legitimizes the concept of it, consultants say.

IBM said it will come out next June with a “repository,” a library containing the information that all the different software engineering tools need to do their jobs. Strict rules will ensure that all toolmakers structure their information in a consistent way.