BOSTON, March 5, 1997 — As the Object World trade conference brings together the industry’s leading object solution vendors this week, Microsoft Corp. announced that more than 80 software companies are already taking advantage of the open, cross-platform Microsoft® ActiveX
™
component software architecture to build distributed computing solutions for the enterprise.
“ActiveX is an industry standard object technology for the desktop and the Internet, and now is scaling into the enterprise,”
said Bob Muglia, vice president, server applications division, Microsoft.
“By bringing together robust distributed services, cross-platform support, Internet integration and compatibility with the world’s largest base of component software, ActiveX provides real business value for developers seeking the benefits of object technology at all levels of the enterprise.”
Open, Interoperable and Scalable
ActiveX component technology is supported by thousands of corporations and developers. A developer can use any tool or language to create powerful components that can run on the server and encapsulate business logic in legacy transaction systems, databases or enterprise applications on any platform.
With the release of Microsoft Transaction Server, a core service within the Microsoft Active Server, Microsoft is bringing transaction semantics and component-based software development together for the first time. Transaction Server provides the reliability and scalability needed for robust distributed computing and provides transaction semantics and a scalable server-based execution environment for ActiveX components that run at the middle tier of a distributed application.
Enterprise Vendors Embrace ActiveX and Active Server
“Microsoft and SAP are jointly working on standards for business content, called BAPIs, and distributed computing on the Internet requires an even stronger technology foundation,”
said Guenther Tolkmit, vice president of technology for SAP AG.
“We are therefore very excited that DCOM – a major technology underpinning of our existing Internet release R/3 3.1 – and Microsoft Transaction Server combine to provide the solution for a need in a forgotten area: transaction integrity for business applications. This is essential for SAP’s type of business applications.”
“Our enterprise application suite, Protean, uses ActiveX today to give our Global 1,000 customers a competitive advantage, said Mike Ehrenberg, chief technology officer, process business unit at Marcam Corp.”
We are using DCOM as a core part of our distributed object architecture to provide the performance and scalability demanded by large enterprises. Microsoft Transaction Server breaks new ground by delivering transaction processing services for component-based applications. We look forward to the added capabilities it will bring to our product.
“
“Powersoft has made a strong commitment to take advantage of the capabilities of ActiveX and DCOM, which will allow our customers to benefit from the strong infrastructure this architecture provides,”
said Bob Zurek, vice president of research and technology for the Powersoft development tools division at Sybase Inc.
“The next version of our Optima++ RAD development product will extend our COM support to include Microsoft’s Active Server technologies by allowing the creation of ActiveX-based servers.”
“Object Automation is developing an object-oriented framework for industrial automation,”
said Dave Smith, president, Object Automation.
“We recently went through a comprehensive evaluation of distributed object frameworks. We saw ActiveX with DCOM as the clear winner early on, based on its performance, robustness and open architecture.”
Availability
DCOM is built into the Windows NT® Server network operating system version 4.0 and the Windows NT Workstation operating system version 4.0. It is available for the Windows® 95 operating system free of charge from the Microsoft Web site, http://www.microsoft.com/com/default.asp . (Connect-time charges may apply.) Microsoft Transaction Server is available now at an introductory price of approximately $1,995 per server. Customers can download a free evaluation copy from the Internet at http://www.microsoft. com/ntserver/ .
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (NASDAQ
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software for personal computers. The company offers a wide range of products and services for business and personal use, each designed with the mission of making it easier and more enjoyable for people to take advantage of the full power of personal computing every day.
Microsoft, ActiveX, Windows NT and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
Other product and company names herein may be registered trademarks of their respective owners.
Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft Web page at http://microsoft.com/presspass/ on Microsoft’s corporate information pages.
Vendors Embracing ActiveX Component Software Architecture For Enterprise Computing
Press Contact List
Tools
Applied Information Sciences Inc.
Borland International Inc.
Cognos Inc.
Compuware
DataFocus
Digital Equipment Corp.
Dynasty Technologies, John Zurawsk, (630) 769-8500
Forte Software Inc.
Intergraph Software Solutions Inc., Mike Paludan, (205) 730-3040
Microfocus
Powersoft Corp., Kathleen Quirk, (508) 287-1882
Rational Software Corp.
Seagate Software
SNI
SQA
Synon, Shawn Gathos, (415) 461-5000, ext. 1860
Texas Instruments Inc.
Usoft, Martin Gandar, 31-35-699-0864
Vision-Soft
Solutions
Camstar Systems Inc., Sandy Towle, (408) 559-5700
Catalyst International, Scott Rishel, (414) 362-6723
Csoft International
Clarify Inc.
DBSS
Dun & BradStreet Software, Naresh Nagarajan, (212) 227-4832, ext. 433
E-Stamp Corp., Greg Matz, (415) 703-0400, ext. 236, or Ken Tompkins, (415) 703-0400, ext. 223
ESRI
FastLane Technologies, Maggie Melerhorst, (613) 599-3600, ext. 4377
FLX
Fourth Shift, Laurie Dana, (510) 328-3415
Frontoffice Technologies, Rebecca Gelina, (206) 443-8004
Health Systems Technologies Inc.
Hyperion Software
ICL Retail Systems, Horace Clemmons, (919) 556-8241
Intellution Inc.
IntraActive Software Corp. Zor Gorlov, (201) 716-0384
Marcam Corp.
Object Automation
Oceania Inc.
Platinum Software
Prologic, Marlene Yip, (604) 278-6470
Rockwell Software Inc.
SAP AG
Siemens Nixdorf Information Systems AG, Jim Corbinor or Olaf Kaestner, (888) 272-4798
Sterling Commerce
Symix Systems Inc., Jorge L. Lopez, (614) 523-7249
Transportation Information Technologies (TransIT) L.L.C.
Wonderware Corp.
System and Internet Software
Alteer, Phil Huber, (714) 789-0500
AMS/AGENA Corp.
Applied Technical Systems Inc., Fred Wurden, (360) 478-2710
Attachmate Corp.
Amdahl Corp., Mary Luciano, (408) 746-6166
BMC
Broadbase Information Systems Inc., Bruce Armstrong, (415) 655-7204
CMS/Data
Computer Associates International Inc.
Gradient Technologies, Dan Chmielewski, (508) 24-9600, ext. 179
Harmonic Lightwaves, Jill Zabkar, (408) 496-0900
Infoseek Corp., Steve Grady, (408) 567-2930
Info Support, Rob Schut or Henk de Koning, 31-318-552020
McAfee Associates
MetaView
Mosaix, John Tarabini, (510) 337-2115
Netsoft
Network Imaging Corp.
PCSI
Persistence Software Inc.
Proginet Corp.
Querisoft, Amir Hudda, (404) 812-6272
SAS Institute Inc.
Scopus Technology Inc.
Software AG
Stratus
Systems and Synchronous Inc
Tandem Computers Inc.
Wall Data Inc.
Solution Developers
BEST Systems Inc., Dr. Nand Singh, (972) 233-6300
Clarity Consulting Inc., Craig Goren, (312) 634-6050, ext. 7101
Commercial Computer Services Inc., Bill Whiting, (507) 287-0001
Deloitte & Touche Consulting Group
Developmentor
The Digital Foundry Inc.
Dominion Tech
Graphical Technologies Corp., Rene Moreno, (312) 857-1166, ext. 20
Interactive Software Corp.
International Systems Group Inc, Max Dolgicer, (212) 489-0400, ext. 43
Micro Modeling Associates
Object Factory, Olaf Wikesland, +47-22-63-85-89
Panther Software, Steve Robinson, (310) 372-6806
Prolifics
