Internet tops product intros at Object World Java's long shadow influences vendor product plans By Elizabeth Heichler, IDG News Service

May  1996

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Vendors of object-oriented technology have often seemed a step ahead of the rest of the software industry, but the Internet revolution may be changing all that, as the object crowd puts in overtime to keep pace with the Web and the 'Net -- and Java.

At the May Object World show in Boston, a company spokesman describing his firm's new product to a reporter hastened to add that although the company's literature didn't say so, the software would work with Sun Microsystems' red-hot Java programming language. When asked how soon that feature would be available, the spokesman turned to the company president. "We added it last night," said I-Kinetics' president Bruce Cottman, who looked like he could use a little more sleep.

I-Kinetics, of Burlington, MA, introduced its Database Component Server at the show. The software uses Iona Technologies' Orbix ORB (object request broker) to handle database access requests from clients. It currently works with Sybase and Oracle databases and uses the Object Management Group's IDL (Interface Definition Language), which has been extended to generate Java classes. Database Component Server is priced at $3,000 for Solaris, SunOS and HP-UX.

Parcplace-Digitalk Inc. and GemStone Systems Inc. have teamed up to introduce their Internet Application Server. It uses ParcPlace-Digitalk's VisualWave application development tools and GemStone's object application server, which provides transaction integrity and gateways to relational databases from Oracle and Sybase. The Sunnyvale, CA, tools company and Beaverton, OR-based GemStone will jointly market the Web development platform; pricing was not available.

Popkin Software and Systems Inc. of New York has also embraced the Internet, announcing that Java, JavaScript and HTML code can now be generated from a class-type diagram within its SA Object modeling tool.

In the ORB arena, ICL announced availability of its Dais 3.0. The latest broker from the Reston, VA-based unit of ICL plc now complies with release 2.0 of the CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) specification; runs on more platforms, including Windows 95, NT, UnixWare and AIX; offers full multithreading on all platforms; and works with C++ code. ICL plans a phased release of security features over the next year and is also developing Cobol binding, an object transaction service and internationalization features. Interoperability with Java is due by the end of the year. Pricing information was not immediately available.

PostModern Computing's ORBs for C++ and Java will interoperate with Microsoft ActiveX, making it easier to extend distributed object systems to the desktop, according to Jens Christensen, president and CEO of the Mountain View, CA, company. ORBeline is priced starting at $2,999 for a development license, while the BlackWidow technology, built on top of ORBeline, costs $99 per CPU.

Isis Distributed Systems of Marlboro, MA, and Iona, of Dublin, announced the release of their joint product, a fault-tolerant version of Orbix, for Windows NT. Orbix+Isis 1.1 is priced from $4,000 for developer software.
--Elizabeth Heichler, IDG News Service

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