To some extent, they have.  Specifically, they have built their own
feature for automating creating lists (and record loading and output):
 Millennium Load Scheduler.  And they'll be happy to sell that to you
... for tens of thousands of dollars.

We too rely heavily on Expect-created lists, so we're hoping to move
ahead with Scheduler despite its steep cost.

As far as tools for automating other functions are concerned, I
haven't seen any indication that Innovative is doing anything.  But I
certainly could have missed something.

Matt

On Wed, May 14, 2008 at 7:02 PM, Ken Irwin <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Is their any hope for those of us who rely on our Expect-monkeys in III?
> My most important Expect scripts use the create-list function, and I
> hope that'll stay around for a while. But I'm sure they'll eventually go
> away too.
>
> Has III shown any interest in building in their own macros/automation
> features to do the sorts of tasks for which we rely on Expect?
>
> Ken
>
> Kyle Banerjee wrote:
>>
>> Last week, III announced that they are removing a number of
>> circulation functions from the telnet menus in a software update that
>> became generally available this month. From what I've been able to
>> surmise, functions that will be removed include placing holds and
>> checking things in or or out. Removing these menu options will break
>> scripts that have been in use for years at institutions in our
>> consortium, and lots more staff time will be required to perform
>> certain tasks after some systems are upgraded.
>>
>> Apparently, III recently discovered that a bug involving holds was
>> caused by the character-based system, but it is also related to a
>> desire to port everything to Millennium. Based on the reasoning behind
>> the announcement, future updates are likely result in other mission
>> critical scripts breaking as other character-based functionality is
>> deprecated.
>>
>> Just a reminder of the risks of relying on automation that depend on
>> interfaces that are losing vendor support.
>>
>> kyle
>>
>
> --
> Ken Irwin
> Reference Librarian
> Thomas Library, Wittenberg University
>