Microsoft Announces New Interoperability Initiatives for COM and Microsoft Transaction Server Technology
NEW ORLEANS, June 1, 1998 — At TechEd 98 today, Microsoft Corp. announced several new interoperability initiatives based on the Microsoft® Component Object Model (COM) and Microsoft Transaction Server technologies.
In separate announcements, IONA Technologies PLC and Microsoft announced that IONA will be integrating its Object Transaction Monitor (OTM) software with Microsoft Transaction Server technology; Visual Edge Software Ltd. announced licensing of COM on UNIX; and Digital Equipment Corp. announced its plans to provide additional interoperability between Microsoft Transaction Server technology and Digital ACMS. Together these and earlier announcements highlight the growing momentum behind Microsoft’s commitment to interoperability with heterogeneous environments in the enterprise.
“Interoperability makes it easier for customers to build enterprise applications and components while lowering integration costs,”
said Bob Muglia, senior vice president, applications and tools at Microsoft. “COM and Microsoft Transaction Server play a significant role in Microsoft’s interoperability strategy, and today’s announcements highlight the momentum behind these technologies.”
“We are very excited about the additional interoperability work Microsoft is bringing to the enterprise,”
said David Yeger, vice president at Merrill Lynch Company Inc.
“COM-based technologies such as Transaction Server, Internet Information Server and Microsoft Message Queue Server and the interoperability and ease of development they provide are strategic to us. COM provides us with a great way of integrating our diverse environments.”
In related announcements, IONA Technologies said it will integrate its OrbixOTM with Microsoft Transaction Server technology. Building on IONA’s previously announced licensing of Microsoft’s COM technology in January, this new integration will allow transaction components to interoperate seamlessly across the Internet, enabling transactions started by components in either Microsoft Transaction Server technology or OrbixOTM to involve components in either environment. The solution is based on the transaction Internet protocol (TIP), a proposed Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standard. This approach can be used by other vendors as well.
Visual Edge’s licensing of COM will provide UNIX-based COM-CORBA bridging. By licensing COM on UNIX, Visual Edge will be able to offer the benefits of its COM-CORBA ObjectBridge to a new customer base, UNIX developers. This work will provide customers with greater levels of interoperability and integration in the enterprise.
Digital plans to provide additional interoperability between Microsoft’s Transaction Server technology and Digital’s ACMS transaction technology, using TIP. This will allow Digital ACMS family users on Digital Open VMS, Digital UNIX and the Microsoft Windows NT® operating system to utilize TIP transactions and application interoperability to perform transactions with Transaction Server technology throughout the enterprise.
Today’s announcements build on these previous Microsoft interoperability initiatives:
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Licensing COM to major system vendors such as Digital, Siemens Nixdorf Information Systems Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Silicon Graphics Inc.
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Support by leading systems integrators Andersen Consulting, Electronic Data Systems Corp., KPMG and Vanstar Corp. of support for COM across their customers’ mixed-platform environments.
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SAP and Baan COM initiatives
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Windows NT-based interoperability initiatives:
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Single-interface access to any data store through OLE DB and ODBC, plus enhanced support for Oracle 7.3+ via Microsoft Transaction Server 2.0 technology
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Transaction support to IBM CICS and IMS in Microsoft SNA Server 4.0, using Microsoft Transaction Server technology
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Reliable integration with the IBM MQSeries using Microsoft Message Queue Server (MSMQ) and the Level 8 Bridge
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Reliable application interoperability over the Internet to any browser using Internet Information Server (IIS) integration with Microsoft Transaction Server and MSMQ
About Microsoft Transaction Server Technology
Microsoft Transaction Server technology make it easier to write and deploy scalable, distributed applications. It allows developers to focus on solving the business logic and value-added programming rather than writing infrastructure code, which is a time-consuming and laborious process. Transaction Server technology combines the features of transaction processing with the benefits provided by component software, including a wide range of component services, while providing interoperability with existing customer investments.
About the Component Object Model
The Microsoft Component Object Model provides a standard way to write components and applications. It provides the richest set of integrated services, the widest choice of easy-to-use tools, and the largest set of available applications. COM is used on over 150 million systems worldwide. According to Giga Information Group, customer demand for third-party components was $410 million in 1997 and is expected to grow to $670 million in 1998. For more information on COM and related technologies, visit: http://www.microsoft.com/com/default.asp .
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