Munich, Germany (March 5, 1997) -- Microsoft Corp. and Software AG today released a beta version of Microsoft's distributed component software for the Sun Solaris operating system, the first delivery of the companies' plans to bring Microsoft's ActiveX technology to midrange and mainframe platforms.

In addition, Software AG of Darmstadt, Germany, said that it plans to begin beta testing of versions for the Digital Equipment Corp.'s Digital Unix and Linux platforms later this month.

All three versions are scheduled for general release in April, the companies said in a press release.

Under an agreement with Microsoft, Software AG is extending Microsoft's distributed component object model (DCOM) technology to non-Windows midrange and mainframe platforms. Specifically, Software AG is porting Microsoft's component architecture to Hewlett-Packard Co.'s HP-UX, IBM's AIX and OS/400, Santa Cruz Operations Inc.'s UnixWare, DEC's OpenVMS, and Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme AG's (SNI) Sinix operating systems.

Software AG's technologies include a cross-platform implementation of Microsoft's component object model (COM), which is the foundation of ActiveX, and Distributed COM (DCOM), the object protocol that provides interoperability between distributed ActiveX components.

Once ported, the Unix and mainframe versions of DCOM will allow developers to create cross-platform applications built around the ActiveX component architecture.

ActiveX is Microsoft's development architecture for creating component-based applications built around COM -- once known as OLE. The component architecture defines a standard for how software building blocks behave when inserted by a developer into an application as well as a standard way for how objects request services from one another.

A free preview version for Sun Microsystems Sun Solaris 2.5 has been available since October.

The beta release is available for download at Software AG's U.S. Web site at http://www.sagus.com/. More information on DCOM can be found at Microsoft's site at http://www.microsoft.com/oledev/.

--Torsten Busse, IDG News Service, Munich Bureau